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C M I C A C O 




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THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF GAMES 
AND PARTIES 




JHE child's red letter day is the day when 
mother allows. him to have a party, or 
when he plays a happy game with some 
other children. 



(\ There is a very real reason for this child's happiness. 
A party means for a child his first attempts at giving 
pleasure to others; his pleasure in games means that he 
has an opportunity to subordinate himself to others 
and find joy in being part of a small, social group. 

(J Too often we plan children's parties that are so elabo- 
rate that they take away from the child's fine joy in 
hospitality; he has no share in preparing for the party, 
and no part in the entertainment of his guests. And 
often, too, we encourage a child to play alone, not 
realizing how important in his development are the 
games that he plays with other boys and girls. 



GAMES AND PARTIES 

(\ The Children's Book of Games and Parties aims to 
help mothers to plan simple entertainments for every 
possible occasion in the child's year, and it offers games 
that will help to train the child's dawning social instinct. 
The parties and games cover all the interesting mile- 
stones in a child's life; holidays, birthdays, and the 
different seasons. Each entertainment has been 
planned having in mind those activities and plays 
that most, interest children and they also give children 
a good deal to do in the way of handicraft. 

Q The book is written in popular, child-like style, 
having in mind children's as well as mothers' reading. 






HE games and suggestions for chil- 
dren's parties which make up this 
collection have all been selected hav- 
ing in view their simplicity, their 
effect upon the physical and social development 
of the child, and their adaptability — to use in 
any home, locality, or school room. 

They are compiled and described in such 
simple language that the book may be put in the 
hands of children as a help to them in their play, 
or it can be used by the mother or teacher who 
wishes to entertain children along educational 
and unique lines. 



crawssaaBK&sA 









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Ball Games ------ 

Games for the Barn - - - 
Games for a Walk - - - - 

A Bean Bag ------ 

Games for a Rainy Day - - 
Games for a School Child - - 
Games for the School Yard - 



I 

7 
13 
19 
27 
35 
43 



Fireside Games ----- 49 



Snow Games ----- 

Rainy Sunday Plays - - - 
Sunday Hand Work - - - 
Ring Games ------ 

Games for the Railroad Train 
Pencil and Paper Games - - 
Thanksgiving Games - - - 
Games to Play at any Party - 
House Party Games - - - 
Penny Games - - - - - 

Christmas Home Games - - 
Christmas Party Games - - 
Hallowe'en Games - - - - 

Wind Games 




57 

67 

73 

77 

83 

91 

97 

103 

109 

115 

123 

13! 

139 

145 



\l 



^Ss^iJiHd 




ONTBNT^ 



& 



New Year's Party, A - - 

Story Parties - - - - 

Noah's Ark Party, A - - 

Soap Bubble Party, A - - 

Valentine Party, A - - - 
Birthday Party, The Child's 

Peter Rabbit Party, A - - 

Gingerbread Party, A - - 

Plantation Party, A - - 

Hallowe'en Party, A - - 

Birthday Party, A - - - 

Nursery Tea Party, The - 

Garden Tea Party, A - - 





HALF A DOZEN BALL GAMES AND HOW 
TO PLAY THEM 

OWHERE is one able to find such good 
play-fellows as among the members 
of the Ball Family. All the way up 
from the red gas ball and the toy 
balloon that delight the little chap, to the 
rugged, leather, pigskin fellow that belongs to 
the college boy there are shades and varying 
sizes in the members of this jolly family; 
golf balls, base balls, basket balls, medicine 
balls and cricket balls — too many to enumerate, 
but one and all having the same characteristics. 
Every single one of this Ball Family wants to 
keep moving. Balls absolutely refuse to stay 
still. They want to play. 



2 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Here, then, are a few of the games the Ball 
Family would suggest, if a group of boys and 
girls can be found willing to join in the game. 

Balloon Ball is a capital game for an out- 
door party, as it adapts itself to a lawn, and any 
number of children may take part. Two ropes, 
tied to two tree trunks or bushes are stretched 
on opposite sides of the lawn a distance of per- 
haps six feet from the ground. The ball used 
in playing the game may be one of soft worsted, 
a toy balloon, or better still a Japanese paper 
ball which shows charming, colored designs after 
it has been inflated. 

The players are divided into two teams which 
we will call Team Right and Team Left. They 
stand in rows on the lawn, a line of Team Right 
players alternating with a line of players from 
Team Left. 

At a given signal an odd player tosses the ball 
in the air, it is met and again tossed by the player 
to whom it falls, and it must be kept in motion 
all the time — Team Right trying to succeed in 
batting it across the rope at the right of the lawn 
while Team Left does its best to prevent this 
and bat the ball across the other rope. 

II the ball is broken, if a player strikes it with 
his fist instead of the open palm, or if a player 



BALL GAMES 3 

moves from his place, a foul is counted against 
that player's team. 

The game is won by the team who first bats 
the ball across it's own rope goal. 

Dodge Ball is also a splendid out-of-door 
game. The players are divided into two even 
groups, one group joining hands to form a circle 
while the players of the other group stand inside 
the circle. The larger the circle on the outside 
the more difficult and exciting will be the game. 
A basket ball should be used if there are a good 
many players. If there are only a few players 
in each group and the circle is small, a smaller, 
softer ball may be used. 

The circle players must try and hit the center 
men with the ball, the center players dodging to 
escape it, jumping, stooping, or resorting to any 
means save leaving the circle. As soon as a 
player is hit, he must toss back the ball and leave 
the circle. The player remaining longest inside 
wins the game. In repeating the game, the 
center players of the previous game form the 
circle and the circle players must take their turn 
at dodging the ball inside. 

Puss in the Corner may be so adapted as to 
make a most exciting, out-of-door ball game. A 
fairly open plot of ground, giving the players an 



4 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

opportunity to run, should be chosen. Each 
player selects a tree, instead of a "corner," as a 
goal, and an odd player, holding a medicine ball, 
stands in the centre of the field. 

The centre player throws the ball, trying to 
hit the three men. The latter must continually 
change places, going from one tree to another, 
dodging behind the trees, or jumping to escape 
the ball. If a player is hit while he is away from 
his tree, he must change places with the centre 
player, and take his turn at being It. 

This Puss in the Corner Ball is a lot of fun at a 
party when the room may be cleared of furniture 
and a soft, wool ball substituted for the more 
clumsy medicine ball. 

/$ Circle Ball calls for a circle of players who 
stand about five feet apart. The method of 
playing the game is very simple, but it demands 
quick thinking and much dexterity and skill. 
The ball is passed rapidly from one player to 
another, its direction being often reversed, or it 
is suddenly tossed across the circle to the utter 
confusion of the player who did not see it com- 
ing. Each player must be alert and ready to 
catch the ball. If one fails, he must take his 
seat and the game is won by the two players who 
remain standing longest. 



BALL GAMES 5 

Kg Ball is a good beach game. 

All the players provide themselves with sticks, 
and "count out" for the odd player who is to be 
It. A basket ball is placed in a hole in the sand 
and the players, all save the odd one form a 
circle about this centre hole, each one digging 
with his stick a smaller hole in the sand in front 
of him. The basket ball is the Pig. Next, the 
players group themselves about the Pig, putting 
their sticks down in the large hole under the 
ball. At a signal, they all lift the ball with their 
sticks and rush to the smaller holes, each putting 
the end of his stick down in the hole. There is 
one less player than there are small holes, so an 
odd player is again left out, and it is his duty to 
try and get the Pig back into the hole with his 
stick. All the other players try to keep him 
from accomplishing his object by pushing the 
ball in opposite directions with their sticks. 
They must not kick the ball, or play it in any 
other way. They may leave their places if they 
like, but if they do, the player who is It may put 
his stick in a vacant hole, and the odd player who 
is then left out will have to play on the Pig. 
The player who succeeds in getting the ball back 
into the hole is considered the winner, and Pig 
Ball will be found as much fun for American 



6 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

boys as it was for the little Chinese children who 
invented it. 

Pass Ball is a game that will give opportunity 
for much skillful handling of the ball. Two 
groups of players form two long, opposite lines, 
— the end man of each line holding a ball high 
in the air. One, two, three is counted by an odd 
player, and then each end man starts his ball 
down his line, each player taking it and passing 
it to the player next to him until the end of the 
line is reached. The bah will often drop, and 
in that case, it must be started all over again. 
The line whose ball reaches the end first, scores 
as the winning team. 






GAMES FOR THE BARN 

GREAT, big, hay filled barn to play in! 
What does it matter that the wind 
outside is blowing a gale of nobody 
knows how many knots an hour and 
the barn creaks like some old sailing craft 
out on a perilous voyage. Of course the chil- 
dren might play games in the house. It would 
be ever so much warmer there, this fine, free 
Saturday afternoon, but one can keep warm in 
the barn, too. There are some romping, rol- 
licking games that are too noisy for the house, 
and just right for the big, clean, open floor 
spaces of the barn. They are such lively games, 
too, that they will keep fingers and toes tingling 
until supper time comes. 



8 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

A Corn Race is such fun. The leader of the 
game selects a handful of corn from the corn bin, 
and holds it tightly between the palms of his 
hands, the other players standing in a circle 
around him. Then, as in the old game of Button, 
Button, the leader puts his closed hands in the 
open hands of each of the other players, pre- 
tending to drop in the corn. Perhaps the leader 
will make the rounds of the players twice, but, 
at last, some child receives the corn. This 
player is chased by all the others the whole 
length of the barn and he is only saved from be- 
ing It by returning and giving the corn back to 
the leader. He is usually tagged, however, and 
must then pay a forfeit. 

A Clam Shell Fight is a less strenuous, but 
quite as exciting a game. The players must 
provide themselves with an equal number of 
large clam shells, although any other large, brit- 
tle variety of shell will serve the purpose. The 
players then divide into groups of two, each 
couple standing facing each other, and a dis- 
tance of about four feet apart. After counting 
out to see who shall be It, the child in each 
couple who is chosen must put one shell on the 
barn floor exactly between him and his opponent. 
His opponent then throws one of his shells upon 



GAMES FOR THE BARN 9 

the one which lies on the floor, trying to break it, 
and if he be successful, he wins one of the other 
man's shells and has a chance to smash another. 
This is continued until all of one player's shells 
have been won by his partner, and the player is 
counted winner who has the most unbroken 
shells at the end of the game. 

Pebble Races form a splendid barn game. 
Two lines, parallel to each other and about six 
feet apart are chalked on the barn floor, the 
space between them being known as neutral 
ground. Almost the length of the barn on 
either side from the neutral ground, two more 
lines are drawn, parallel to the first lines and 
forming two goals. The players divide into two 
equal groups, standing between these lines and 
choosing sides according to the light outside or 
dark lining of a large, smooth pebble which is 
held by the player who is It and stands in the 
middle of the neutral ground. At a signal, this 
leader tosses the pebble up in the air, the two 
groups of players keeping watch carefully to see 
if it falls to the floor with the dark or the light 
side uppermost. If it falls with the dark part 
showing, the players who choose that color must 
run for their goal, chased by the other team of 
players and they are not safe until they succeed 



10 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

in crossing their line. The players who are 
caught must carry their captors to the neutral 
ground, pick-a-back. 

A Chicken Game that one sees the little 
Chinese children playing in the streets of Hong 
Kong may be played in the barn, utilizing short 
sticks of kindling wood from the wood pile. A 
number of straight rows of kindling wood are 
laid on the floor, as many rows as there are 
children, and with ten sticks in each row, an 
easy hopping distance apart. The players, who 
are called the chickens, stand at the head of the 
lines. At a given signal all the chickens begin 
to hop over the sticks of kindling wood, without 
touching one, from the head to the end of each 
line. Only one foot must touch the ground at a 
time so it is not an easy journey for the chickens. 

When the end of a row is successfully reached, 
the last stick is kicked away by thechicken'sfoot, 
and he hops back to his starting point. As soon 
as he reaches the first stick that, too, may be kick- 
ed away, and the chicken continues his hopping, 
backward and forward until only one stick re- 
mains in his row. The player who accomplishes 
this first, wins the game. 

The little Chinese children take off their high 
heeled shoes and use them in playing chicken. 



GAMES FOR THE BARN 1 1 

Tom Tiddler may be played in a barn, quite 
as easily as on a sidewalk, or in a garden. The 
players all "count out" to see which one is to be 
Tom Tiddler. Tom's house is then drawn with 
chalk on the barn floor. Tom steps inside, sits 
down, and plays that he is taking a nap. All the 
other players then creep cautiously up to Tom's 
house crying: "Here we are on Tom Tiddler's 
ground, stealing gold and silver." Tom Tiddler 
still sleeps, and the invaders grow bolder, creep- 
ing closer, until Tom suddenly wakens and gives 
chase. The child who is caught must live in the 
house and be Tom Tiddler, second. 

Pebble Marbles is a fine Saturday afternoon 
game for the barn. A number of the round, 
shiny pebbles that look so much like marbles are 
collected and the players seat themselves in a 
circle on the barn floor. A big circle is drawn 
with chalk on the floor and all the pebbles are 
then scattered inside as one throws jack stones. 
The players, one at a time, draw a chalk line 
between any two of the pebbles and try to snap 
one of the two, as one snaps a marble, so that 
the second one will be hit and sent out of the 
circle. If the player is successful, he may keep 
both of the pebbles and try again. If he is un- 
successful, the next player scatters the pebbles 



12 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

over again and takes his turn at snapping. The 
child with the greatest number of pebbles at the 
end of the game wins. 

Hide and Seek games are splendid to play in 
barn because there are so many fine, dark nooks 
and corners in which a child may hide. There 
is a new way of playing hide and seek, the oppo- 
site of the old, familiar game. The player who 
is It goes away to hide, instead of blinding. All 
the other players remain at the goal while one 
counts one hundred, and they must all blind 
their eyes. At the end of the counting, the 
players all hunt for the hider. As soon as one 
discovers his hiding place, he must squeeze in 
and hide there, too. If there is not enough room 
for him, he must take a seat in plain sight near 
the hiding place. The player who is unable to 
discover the hiding place is It for the next game. 
This game will last a whole afternoon until the 
barn begins to grow dusky and the children 
decide that even barn games come to an end 
some time, and they discover that the thing they 
most want to do is to go in the house for tea. 





GAMES FOR A WALK 

T may be a Sunday afternoon walk, or 
a long, happy tramp through the 
woods and down the lanes late in 
the afternoon when school is over, 
and it isn't quite time for tea. 

Every child loves to go for a walk, but not 
every child knows how to use his eyes when he is 
jaunting about the country. Overhead, and at 
one's right and left hand, and down on the ground 
there are wonderful things that a child can learn 
about, and discover newly if he really knows how 
to see. Seeing leaves, and clouds, and pebbles, 
and birds, and flowers makes a walk twice as 
jolly as the one when a child just trots along, 
making his legs work, but not his mind. 



14 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Here are some games a group of children may 
play on the road to train every pair of blind 
eyes to see the wonderful out-door things. 
First comes the game materials that are right 
under our feet. 

Gather pockets and caps and school bags full 
of road treasures; all sorts of nuts; chestnuts, 
acorns, shagbarks and walnuts. Pick up smooth 
stones and quartz crystals, and flat, silvery slabs 
of mica, and rough pudding stones mixed up 
with all sorts of other kinds of rock. 

These are to be found by every roadside, and 
they form splendid game material. When the 
feet are tired, sit down by the edge of the road 
and play a game of touch with the contents of 
pockets and caps. One child shuts his eyes. 
Perhaps it will be best to blindfold him with a 
handkerchief because it will be such a tempta- 
tion to peep. Then put a nut, or a bit of the 
rock collected in his outstretched hands and ask 
him to guess what it is by feeling of it. It will 
be an easy matter to recognize a chestnut, or an 
acorn perhaps, but more difficult to tell with one's 
fingers the name of a bit of quartz or a strip of 
mica. The game can be varied by giving the 
blindfolded child a twig to try and name by just 
feeling of it. A twisted length of bitter sweet 



GAMES FOR A WALK 15 

vine, or a budded branch of witch hazel, or even 
a maple or other twig can be recognized after 
this roadside game has been played a few times. 

When flower time comes, gather as many 
sweet smelling wild flowers as possible, for a 
flower game, taking care to pick only one or two 
at a time and leave the others for the next group 
of children out walking, too. There will be wild 
roses, and violets, and wild mallow and moun- 
tain pinks, all with their own woodsy smell, 
and this is a delightful game to play with them. 
One child is blindfolded, and a second child holds 
a flower to his face whose name he is to try and 
tell by its odor. As many flowers as a child 
guesses correctly he may have and take home to 
mother. 

When the children come to a piece of woods 
where there are ever so many different kinds of 
trees; pine, fir, spruce, hemlock, beech, birch, 
and the more rare varieties, white birch, wild 
cherry, willow and arbor vitae, the whole party 
of pedestrians may stop and play a tree game. 
A card is fastened on one or more trees of each 
variety in the limits of the game space. These 
cards may be bits of birch bark, or scraps of 
paper from the school bags. Each card is 
numbered, though, and each child prepares a 



16 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

slip of paper for himself having a set of num- 
bers corresponding to those on the trees, so 
that if ten or twelve trees have been tagged 
there will be as many numbers on the slips. 
Then the children go out tree hunting with their 
papers and pencils. As soon as a child discovers 
a tree whose name he knows, or thinks he knows, 
he writes it down on his slip opposite the tree's 
number. At a signal, a whistle or shout or 
halloo from the leader, the players all go back to 
the meeting point and compare their lists. The 
child with the longest list of correct answers 
wins this novel tree game. It is a delightful 
game for a picnic. 

While the children are out tree hunting, they 
may gather ever so many leaves and play a Leaf 
Game when they are back in the cleared space 
in the woods, seated in a circle on the ground. 
All the leaves, no two of which are alike, are 
placed in , a basket. The leader of the game 
hands the leaves, one at a time, to the other 
children and each child writes its name, if he 
knows it, on a piece of paper from his school bag. 
When all the leaves are passed, and all the names 
written down, the lists are compared to see which 
child has the most correct leaf names. 

The Japanese children play a delightful Grass 



GAMES FOR A WALK 17 

Game that will entertain children of our own land 
out for a walk. Each child gathers a handful of 
grass from the side of the road, the soft, flexible 
kind if possible. The swamp grasses that grow 
along a beach path are just right for the game. 
One child makes a loop of a blade of grass by 
holding the two ends in his hand. A second 
child loops his blade of grass through this, and 
the two children pull. The child whose grass 
blade breaks first, loses, and must give his two 
pieces to the successful child who in turn matches 
his grass blade with another child, and continues 
to test its toughness until it breaks. When it 
does, finally, break, he must wait and give 
another child a turn. The player with the 
largest pile of broken grasses at the end of the 
game wins. 

The very best game for a walk, though, is a 
sort of Roadside Twenty questions. One child 
is chosen as leader for the space of a quarter of a 
mile, or the length of wood or lane, whichever 
distance is decided upon. During this walk he 
selects a bird, animal, tree, bloom or shrub about 
whose identity the children are to question him, 
and the other children must keep their eyes open 
all the way so as to catch a clue to help them in 
their guessing. At the end of the distance the 



18 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

walkers stop and the game begins. Perhaps 
the leader saw a rare bird, a scarlet Tanager 
possibly, and the children ask these questions 
to discover its name. 

"Where does it build its nest?" to which the 
leader replies: 

"In a pine tree." 

"What color is it?" 

"Scarlet." 

"Has it a sweet song?" 

"No." 

"What color is its mate?" 

"Olive green." 

By this time the children may have almost 
discovered the bird's name. That child who 
tells the correct name first, is the leader for the 
next lap of the walk. Any object may be noted 
and used in this game — a wild mouse, a toad, a 
cow, a blackberry bush, a rare leaf or flower. 
The more difficult the object is to guess, the more 
fun there will be, and the game will open eyes 
marvellously, and make any walk well worth 
while. 




A BEAN BAG AND WHAT YOU CAN DO 

WITH IT 




|N THE beginning, the very nicest thing 
for a child to do with a bean bag is 
to make it. It should be six inches 
square, sewed with strong over and 
over stitches using very stout linen thread, 
and filled about one-third full of white beans 
or dried peas. It does not matter what kind 
of material a child selects for the bean bag 
as long as it is firm and soft. Squares of bright 
calico, flowered chintz, red flannel, or red and 
white striped ticking can be used and any of 
these fabrics will make a pretty bean bag if the 
sewing is done neatly and carefully. A little 
girl who knows how to use knitting needles may 



20 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

knit a bean bag cover of scarlet yarn which will 
be very soft and attractive, or a cover may be 
crocheted or netted from colored cord. 

When a number of bean bags have been fin- 
ished, it will be best to make a large, chintz bag 
to hold them. The bag may hang on a nail in 
the piazza during the warm vacation days when 
a child wants to play out of doors, and in the 
winter there may be a hook for it in the house. 
Bean bags, like other playthings, are very apt 
to lose themselves, most unaccountably, but if 
a child has a special place for them they may 
always be found and will last much longer and 
look fresher than if the children toss them in a 
corner after a game, or leave them on the ground 
in the garden. 

Bean bags races will furnish much fun for a 
group of children who are playing out of doors. 
There should be a dozen bean bags used in the 
game. Six are laid in a row on one side of the 
lawn at a distance of two or three yards apart, 
and six more are laid in exactly the same way 
on the opposite side of the lawn. 

The game is played like a potato race. Two 
leaders run from the first bean bag to the end 
ones, picking up and returning with them to the 
starting point. They then run for the bean bags 



BEAN BAG GAMES 21 

next to the last, repeating this method of col- 
lecting them until the last one has been picked 
up. The leader who collects all the bean bags 
in his line first, wins the game. 

An old barrel hoop may be wound with strips 
of bright cloth, old ribbons, or strips of crepe 
paper to make it look like a circus hoop. It is 
suspended by a loop of cord from a rather high 
limb of an apple tree in the orchard, and the 
children, measuring a certain number of steps 
away from the tree, try to see how many bean 
bags they can throw in succession through the 
hoop. This game is known as Bean Bag Toss. 

Another fine bean bag game for the garden use 
is played with two big piles of bean bags — as 
many as the children can collect, divided equally 
between two piles. Fifteen bean bags in each 
pile is a good number. A line of children stand- 
ing by each pile pass the bean bags in quick 
succession to an end man who must pile them 
neatly in front of him. Should they fall down, 
he will be obliged to stop and re-arrange them. 
The end man receiving all the bags and stacking 
them up in front of him first, wins. 

A number of bean bag games are suitable for 
playing in the barn on a rainy afternoon, and 
will furnish a group of children with much fun. 



22 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Three grain measures of varying sizes may be 
fastened, one inside the other, by means of a 
wire nail driven through the centre. These 
measures should then be set up at an incline, the 
distance of the barn floor away from the players. 
Each player is provided with three bean bags 
which he throws, all three at once, at the goal, 
trying to get them all in. A bag, aimed so 
carefully that it falls into the smallest measure, 
counts fifteen, one in the second measure, ten, 
and one in the largest measure, five. A certain 
score should be decided upon at the beginning of 
the game — fifty will be an easy score — and the 
player reaching it first, wins. 

A Bean Bag Board may be made by any boy 
who has a jig saw and it can be set up in the barn 
for game use instead of the grain measures sug- 
gested in the previous game. A bean bag board 
should be a yard long and eighteen inches wide 
with two or three holes, one above the other cut 
in it with a saw. The top hole may be only a 
trifle larger than a bean bag, the second and 
third holes larger by three and six inches. The 
board should have a strip of wood at the back 
to brace it up at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
The players stand at a throwing line fifteen or 
twenty feet away from the board and may aim 



BEAN BAG GAMES 23 

five bags at the hole, one at a time. Five, ten, 
or fifteen points are scored according to the size 
of the hole through which the bean bag is thrown, 
and the player reaching a score of one hundred 
first, wins the game. 

In the play room, a circle of children may be 
formed, each player except one being provided 
with a bean bag. The players stand quite a 
distance apart. At a given signal, each child 
turns toward the child at the right, tossing his 
bag to him and turning quickly to receive the 
bean bag from his neighbor at the left. The 
game must move quickly so it will call for much 
skill in catching and tossing the bean bags. A 
child who drops his bag must leave the ring. 

A game similar to that of Drop the Handker- 
chief may be played with one bean bag. A 
child, holding the bean bag, runs softly around 
the outside of a large circle of children, dropping 
it, at last, behind one child. This child must 
pick it up and catch the first player before he 
returns to his place in the circle. 

Another circle game that may be played with a 
bean bag requires all the players to stand, facing 
out. The leader who stands in the centre of 
the circle calls a child quickly by name and al- 
most immediately tosses a bean bag to him. 



24 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The player must turn and catch the bag. If 
he has been inattentive and did not hear his name 
called quickly enough to catch the bean bag and 
it falls to the floor, he must leave the circle. 

Bean Bag Puss in the Corner is the jolliest sort 
of a bean bag game. Each child chooses a tree 
for his corner and half the players are provided 
with bean bags. One child tosses a bean bag 
to a child at an opposite tree, immediately run- 
ning toward his opponent's tree. The other 
child tries to catch the bean bag and reach the 
thrower's tree first. As a great many bean bags 
may be flying through the air at once the game 
will prove a whole lot of fun for a group of chil- 
dren. 

Circle Bean Bag is a good lawn game. A 
child must collect ever so many round pebbles 
first and make with them two circles on the 
grass, ten feet apart. About ten feet from each 
circle a throwing line is indicated by pegs stuck 
in the ground with a ribbon stretched across, or 
two long sticks laid down on the grass. The 
children are then divided into two equal groups 
who play against each other. The groups stand 
behind the throwing lines in Indian file. The 
first players in each group try to throw bean bags 
within the circle, moving down to the end of 



BEAN BAG GAMES 25 

their lines to give place to the next players. 
Each bean bag thrown successfully in a pebble 
circle counts five for the side which threw it and 
the side with the highest score when all the 
children have had turns at throwing, wins. A 
group of children will enjoy playing this game 
for two or three hours at a time. 

Bean Bag Call is a fine game to play on a 
lawn or in a field some frosty day when a child 
wants to warm his fingers and toes. One child 
who is It tosses a bean bag in the air and at the 
same time calls quickly the name of another child 
who is playing the game. The child called must 
run forward and catch the bean bag before it 
falls to the ground, or he must leave the ground. 
The child who catches it successfully the great- 
est number of times wins the game. 

Corner Bean Bag is a fine game for a child's 
party. Four captains stand in the centre of 
the room and four groups of children at the cor- 
ners. Each captain calls a group of children and 
throws a bean bag to each one in turn. As the 
last child catches it, the captain calls out — 
"corner" and changes places with the last child 
who, in his turn, becomes captain. That group 
which has all its players in the captain's place 
first, wins the game. 



26 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

At the end of a series of bean bag games there 
may be a very funny bean bag march. Each 
child puts a bean bag as securely as is possible 
on top of his head. Then the children all in 
line march to a lively tune played on the piano, 
or sing, and their hands must rest on their hips, 
never touching the bags. Some of the bean 
bags will fall at once, and those players must 
leave the march. The children who are able 
to balance their bean bags through the march are 
required to skip, run, or dance the two step after- 
ward. The child who does not drop his bean 
bag should have a prize. 





GAMES FOR A RAINY DAY 

HE stormy day when the children can- 
not go out of doors to play is a difficult 
and unhappy one indeed unless there 
are some especially and novel rainy 
day games planned which will give the little 
folks something novel and different to do. There 
may be a whole series of these special plays for 
shut-in Saturdays planned which will make the 
sun shine indoors if it refuses to show its face 
over the garden. 

One mother arranged a rainy day game for 
each room in the house. In the kitchen, while 
she was busy baking, the children were allowed 
to play baker. She gave a little of her bread 
dough, sweetened, to each child. With their 






28 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

toy rolling boards laid on a kitchen chair which 
served for a (able, and with the play room rolling 
pins, they rolled the dough to a thickness which 
could be cut with a silver thimble, These tiny 
biscuits were baked by the children in tin gem 
pans and during the baking Hide the Thimble 
was played to pass away the time. When the 
biscuits, brown and crisp, were taken from the 
oven, a dolls' table was set with small dishes in 
one corner of the kitchen and there was a de- 
lightful party with refreshments of jam and 
thimble biscuits. 

In the children's own play room a game of 
Lost, and Pound was organized. All the scat- 
tered toys of yesterday's play were collected and 
spread out on a long table. One child was blind- 
folded while a second child selected and put 
away in its place one of the toys from the table. 
As soon as this toy was taken away, the blind- 
folded child was allowed to return to the table 
and try to tell which toy was missing. The 
game served the double purpose o( [Hitting the 
play room in neat, orderly condition and sharp- 
ening the children's wits at the same time. 

Rainy day plays in the sewing room were 
varied and full of fun. 

Mother's empty thread and sewing silk spools 



GAMES FOR A RAINY DAY 29 

famished materials for other rainy day pla 
The smaller twist .spools made standards ; 
tiny toy trees. In the hole of each spool a 
mt match was glued and both the spool and 

the match were painted green [with the childre. 
water color paints. Green tissue paper was I 
in narrow strips, fringed and twisted around the 
match where it was glued in pi a make the 

foliage of the tree. A score of these little spool 
trees were placed on the window sill of the house 
to form a doll's park. More spools made dolls' 
furniture. Four formed the legs of a tiny fc 
which had a cardboard mattress and head and 
foot board. ( A with an empty ribbon 

bolt glued to the top made a table, and an ob- 
long piece of cardboard folded in the centre and 
glued to a spool made a doll's chair. 

The long dining room table was always cleared 
on a rainy day and given over to the children's 
use for gar. privilege not accorded usually 

because it was polished and easily marred by 
little fingers. All sorts of delightful plays were 
:zed as the children sat around the big table. 
A supply of wooden button moulds from the 
tailor's and a handful of pointed wooden pegs 
from the shoemaker's made tops. A peg was 
thrust through the hole in each mould and the 



30 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

tops were painted some gay color with water 
colors. The children spun these tops on the 
polished surface of the table, a contest being 
held to see whose top was able to spin the longest. 
These button mould tops were made to race, 
also, from one end of the table to the other 
driven by little whips made of colored cords tied 
to meat skewer handles. 

A basket of common household articles was 
prepared, containing bits of cloth, small objects 
made of different materials, packages of cooking 
materials from the kitchen and a few of the 
children's toys. The children, seated about the 
table, were given pads of paper and pencils. One 
object at a time was taken from the basket, 
handed to the first child who looked at it, wrote 
on his pad the name of the country from which 
he thought the object came and passed it to the 
next child who also tried to write its place of 
manufacture. This was continued until all the 
objects in the basket were exhausted when the 
children compared their lists and a simple prize 
was awarded for the most correct list of countries 
and localities. 

Another game for the dining room table was 
Picture Snap invented by mother, and so de- 
lightful that it would fill a whole rainy afternoon 



GAMES FOR A RAINY DAY 31 

full. Each child was given an old magazine and 
some blank cards like the kindergarten perfor- 
ating cards that cost only ten cents for a hundred. 
The preliminary part of the game consisted in 
cutting out the prettiest advertising pictures 
from the back of the magazines and mounting 
them neatly on the cards. In selecting the mag- 
azines duplicates were chosen so that some of the 
completed picture cards would be alike. When a 
set of these cards was finished, they were shuf- 
fled and dealt to the players, ten to each. Then 
they were laid down, one at a time, in the centre 
of the table and as soon as two duplicates card 
appeared the players all called snap. That 
player who succeeded in first saying the magic 
word received all the cards in the centre of the 
table, and whoever was able to get all the cards 
won and finished the game. 

These simple devices by means of which one 
mother averted and avoided the difficulties of a 
rainy day are suggestive to other mothers. The 
success of each one of the plays lay in the fact 
that it was unique, and saved for special rainy 
day use. 

There may be a special home rainy day box 
full of play materials that the children can dis- 
cover with delight when the clouds drop rain and 



32 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

tears are apt to keep company indoors with the 
drops outside. The box may include many old 
illustrated magazines whose uses are many and 
varied for little folks' play. A scrap book made 
of large leaves of wrapping paper bound to- 
gether can be filled with pictures cut from the 
magazines, each page representing a room in a 
paper doll's house. Pictures of kitchen fur- 
nishings, ranges and dishes from the advertising 
sections of the magazines fill the kitchen page 
of the novel scrap book. There can be a garden, 
a play room, a grocery store, and a drawing 
room in this unique scrap book world for paper 
dolls, and between the pages there lives a whole 
family of fashion plate dolls. 

Other full page illustrations from the maga- 
zines may be torn out, mounted on cardboard and 
cut up into slices and cross sections to make the 
charming perplexity puzzles which are so much 
in vogue just now. 

This rainy day treasure box should include 
bits of colored paper, blunt scissors and a jar 
of paste, with which the children will be able 
to make their own pictures. On a gray card- 
board background a sky line can be indicated by 
pasting on a strip of blue paper. In the fore- 
ground of the picture yellow paper corn shocks 



GAMES FOR A RAINY DAY 33 

and orange paper pumpkins can be pasted to 
make a fall picture. A strip of white paper 
pasted on a blue one will look like a snow covered 
hill and the addition of green paper trees and a 
paper doll in redcoat and hood on the hill will 
make a still more attractive picture. 

A bundle of pieces from mother's cloth bag, 
white and colored will be also a rainy day boon 
for a little girl. A roll of white cloth with inked 
face and a darning cotton or yellow worsted wig 
makes a most companionable rainy day rag doll, 
and her small mother can dress her in a gay 
print dress and gingham sunbonnet. 

For the baby of the family, the treasure box 
may contain a bag of the inch, colored wood 
beads of the kindergarten and a shoe string on 
which to string them, a large polished wood peg 
board and some colored pegs to fit into the holes 
and stand erect and straight like so many 
soldiers in colored coats. There can be a special 
set of rainy day blocks, simple, but attractive 
because the baby does not see them when the 
sun shines. 

A little forethought and there are no rainy 
day tears in the home. 





GAMES FOR A SCHOOL CHILD 

T IS ever so stupid for a boy or girl to 
have to spend a delightful, cozy winter 
evening when the open fire is sputter- 
ing and crackling and the library lamp 
is lighted — just doing lessons. School books are 
dull enough company in the day time, but they 
are very dull companions after tea. 

Will it not be splendid fun to learn some new 
games that teach a child some of the lessons 
which hide between the covers of the school 
books? Then the dry old lesson books may rest 
until morning and school time, for a child will 
learn quite as much through these games with- 
out their help. 



36 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The spelling book has the dullest pages of 
them all, but here are some novel spelling games 
that teach all about words without the assist- 
ance of the speller. 

Spelling Contest. This game calls for a circle 
of children, big or little; but it is ever so 
much more fun if the ring is large. All the 
neighborhood children may be called in to help 
play for there never yet was a child who did not 
need to learn how to spell. The children count 
out to see which of their number shall be It. 
This player stands in the centre of the ring hold- 
ing a bean bag. As he throws the bag to one of 
the children in the circle, he calls out some word, 
and the child at whom he aims must catch the 
bag and spell the word that the leader pronounced 
before he throws the ball back. Failure to 
spell the word correctly causes a child to leave 
the circle, and that child who remains longest 
in the circle wins the game. It will be well to 
have a grown-up near to act as umpire for the 
game, and a big red apple, or a length of red 
ribbon to make a book marker for the speller, 
will be a fine prize for the child who wins the 
game. 

An Alphabet Game is very jolly. There 
should be twenty-seven children to play this 



GAMES FOR A SCHOOL CHILD 37 

game. Some evening a child may give an al- 
phabet party and invite twenty-six of his 
friends to come to his house and help him to 
learn how to spell. Each letter in the alphabet 
is printed on a large white card with a brush and 
India ink, and to each of the children one of 
these cards is given which he pins on his coat. 
Mother, father, grandfather or any other older 
person who can be pressed into service leads the 
game. The alphabet children sit or stand in a 
row, and the leader quickly gives some word 
for them to spell. As soon as the word is given 
the children whose letters spell the word step 
forward in the exact order in which the letters 
should appear in the word. The players will 
have to think quickly and if any letter fails to 
hop into place at the right moment, he should 
be asked to pay some sort of an amusing for- 
feit. 

The forfeit for this game may be to say the 
alphabet backward, without making any mis- 
take. 

A Word Game is a fine game for a rainy even- 
ing, when all the children in the family gather 
around the long library table for an especially 
good time. A set of cards is prepared, each with 
some word printed on it that the children have 



38 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

had difficulty in spelling in school. The cards 
are scattered over the table in plain sight. One 
word is called by the leader of the game, and the 
child who can spell it first and pull it out of the 
collection of other words without touching or 
disturbing any other card may keep it. The 
child who holds the greatest number of cards at 
the end of the game wins. This is rather a 
noisy contest, but ever so much fun for the 
children w^ho take part. 

Now for some arithmetic games. 

Multiplication Ball teaches children the 
multiplication table much faster than any 
arithmetic book. The children playing the 
game form a rather wide circle with one player 
on the outside who holds a rubber ball. This 
leader tosses the ball over the children's heads 
and into the centre of the ring, at the same time 
calling out "seven times nine," "eight times 
five," "six times twelve/' or any other number 
combination he likes. The child in the circle 
who answers the questions correctly and catches 
the ball before it bounds twice scores ten. A 
score of one hundred wins the game. 

Number Circle is another ring game. It 
will need a grown person for the leader who* 
stands in the centre of the circle giving certain 



GAMES FOR A SCHOOL CHILD 39 

number combinations to the children in quick 
succession. Seven and five, less four, multiplied 
by five, divided by eight, or any other arith- 
metical examples. As soon as a child answers 
incorrectly he is obliged to go into the centre of 
the circle, but when he is able to correctly an- 
swer an example that another player failed to 
answer he may again take his place with the 
children in the circle. The player who has been 
in the centre of the circle the least number of 
times wins the game. 

Racing Figures is also an interesting number 
game. The children playing the game are seated 
about a long table and are provided with paper 
and pencils. The leader prints on a child's 
blackboard, a slate, or a long strip of cardboard 
an example similar to the following: 

19-8 7 x 12 18-2 7 X 13 

Each answer represents a lap in the figure race. 
As soon as the problem is given, the children put 
down the answers, and the child who has the 
most correct answers, the greatest number of 
laps, to his credit at the end of a minute, wins 
the figure race. 

The examples may be easy or difficult, ac- 
cording to the arithmetical ability of the children 
playing the game. 



40 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Nature games are varied and charmingly 
adapted to home use. 

Seed Game. The players are provided with 
paper and pencils. On a large sheet of paper 
tacked to the wall at the end of the room, the 
following questions are written: 

What seeds fly? 

What seeds roll? 

What seeds do we eat? 

What seeds feed animals? 

What seeds like to ride? 

What seeds are colored? 

What seeds do the birds love? 

What seeds like to roll? 

The longest list of correct answers wins a 
prize. 

Leaf Names. Thirty or forty leaves are 
waxed and mounted on numbered cards. They 
may include the common leaves to be found in 
every woods; oak, maple, hickory, beech, birch y 
ivy, chestnut, wild apple, cherry, plum, etc., as 
well as the common plant and shrub leaves. 
The players are shown one leaf for a second and 
then another until all have been presented in 
quite rapid succession. As each leaf is shown, 
the players copy the number on their sheets of 
paper and against the number, if they can, the 



GAMES FOR A SCHOOL CHILD 41 

name of the leaf. The player wins who has the 
longest list of correct leaf names when all the 
leaves have been shown. 






GAMES YOU CAN PLAY IN THE 
SCHOOL YARD 

T is just as unpleasant to be a wall 
flower in the school yard at recess 
time as to be one at a party. Re- 
cess is so gloriously short, just a 
breathing space between the long lesson hours, 
and who wants to spend it doing nothing, just 
leaning against the school yard fence perhaps, 
hands in pockets and whistling? 

The very moment when the school doors open 
and the children come surging out is the moment 
to start a game. The boy or girl who is quick 
witted enough to invent or organize a game that 
gives the whole crowd something to do will have 
the best time at recess and will be most popular 
with his or her mates. 



44 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Charlie Over the Water is a fine street 
game to play in the school yard. A group of 
children count out to see which child shall be 
Charlie. The others form a ring about him — 
a great big ring, or there may be a number of 
small groups playing, each with a child in the 
centre. At a given signal the circle moves 
quickly around as the children sing: 

"Charlie over the water, 
Charlie over the sea, 
Charlie caught a woodchuck, 
But he can't catch me." 

When the last word of the ditty is chanted, 
the children all stoop down quickly, Charlie 
trying to touch or tag one before they assume 
this position. The child who is caught must 
take his turn at playing Charlie in the centre of 
the circle. 

Chasing the Weasel is a splendid, rollicking 
game for recess time in the school yard. One 
child impersonating the weasel stands just out- 
side a circle of his mates while a second child 
stands inside, ready to chase the weasel. The 
weasel may take any track he wishes to elude 
his pursuer. He may go in and out between the 
children, skipping one — two — or five children. 



GAMES FOR A SCHOOL CHILD 45 

He may run for awhile on the outside of the 
circle, or on the inside. He may cross the circle 
in zig zag fashion, but whatever may be the 
route of the weasel, that must be the route of the 
child who is following him. If he loses the track 
he must be the weasel. The weasel finds a hole 
in which to rest as a child stretches out his arms 
and holds him. This gives him a chance to get 
his breath occasionally. When the weasel is 
caught, a second weasel is chosen and a second 
child to give chase. 

The Duke's Land is played by a long line of 
children. A line is chalked across the play- 
ground and one child stands just inside it, im- 
personating the Duke. The children advance 
in line, singing: 

"Fin on the Duke's land 
The Duke is at home, 
He cannot catch me 
'Till I say, come." 

As the children near the line, they may jump 
across, but the Duke is not allowed to tag one 
until the word "come." If the Duke be so 
fortunate as to catch one of the intruders he 
may take his place in the line and the child who 
is caught must be the next Duke. 



46 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

It will be even more fun to have a little girl 
dressed up in somebody's long rain cape, playing 
that she is a witch in her cottage whose threshold 
is marked by the chalk line. The children again 
advance, chanting: 

"Old witch, old witch, come out of your house, 
Kettle bubble — toil and trouble, 
Some one is coming, as still as a mouse." 

At the word, mouse, the witch tries to catch 
some child. 

Every boy has his pockets full of small objects 
— marbles, nails, scraps of wood, tops, or penny 
toys. Two lines of children may be formed 
equal in length and a few feet apart to play a new 
Button, Button game, with the contents of some 
boy's pocket. Two leaders are chosen who stand, 
one at the head of each line, holding an object 
high in the air from his pocket. One, two, 
three, is counted and the leaders start the objects; 
marbles, pennies, tops, whatever they may be, 
down the line. Each player must be ready to 
receive the object in his hands and pass it 
quickly to his neighbor. The smaller the object, 
the more difficult will be the game. The end 
man who receives an object first and holds it 
up, wins for his line. This is really a most ex- 



GAMES FOR A SCHOOL CHILD 47 

citing game, compelling the strictest attention, 
and requiring great dexterity. If a player drops 
the "button," he will lose a lot of time for his 
line, and it is very hard to keep it going without 
dropping it, occasionally. 

In any open sunny school yard, a group of 
children will find ever so much fun in playing Tag 
with their shadows. The player who is It tries 
to step on some child's shadow and if he is suc- 
cessful in doing this and is also able to call out 
the child's name before she reaches the school 
wall or fence which is home, the child who was 
tagged must be It. This game is less simple than 
it sounds. There are often a number of class 
rooms having recess at the same time and it is 
not always possible to remember a strange child's 
name before he reaches home. 

Steps is a fine school yard game. A circle 
of players is formed about a single player whose 
eyes are blindfolded. The blind man is then 
turned around two or three times and a few 
players in the circle walk up to him and walk a 
certain number of steps away, carefully counting 
their steps. The blind man is told how many 
steps will take him to a certain player, and he 
tries to reach him, guessing the direction in 



48 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

which he must go. If he is successful, the player 
whom he caught must be the blind man. 

Puss in the ring may be played by as many 
children as one wishes. Puss stands in the centre 
of a good sized chalk ring, and the other players 
group themselves about outside. Puss may tag 
any player who has his foot inside the ring. The 
players tease Puss in every possible way, jump- 
ing inside the ring, and out again before she is 
able to catch them. As soon as a player is 
tagged he must join Puss and help do the tag- 
ging, and the child who is able to elude the 
clutches of the combined "pussies" longest wins 
the game. 

School yard games are almost as important 
for boys and girls as lessons. One can get so 
much more fresh air in one's lungs when one is 
running and shouting than by just standing still 
and moping. Playing a game is the best way 
for schoolmates to get acquainted with each 
other, and there will be fewer quarrels at recess 
time if a group of children are paying strict at- 
tention to the rules of a fine, exciting game. 





FIRESIDE GAMES 

HE wind is howling down the chimney 
and perhaps the rain and sleet are 
beating against the window pane, 
but what child cares that it is a 
stormy night outside? The nursery fire is all 
aglow and ablaze with the coals of good cheer. 
It sparkles and crackles and burns merrily 
enough to make one forget the weather. There 
is a dish of apples to roast in front of the fire 
and there are chestnuts, too, and marshmallows. 
A warm red rug is spread on the floor and the 
children in bath gowns and slippers are sitting 
up for a happy hour just before bed time to play 
games — fireside games — and what shall they 
be? 



50 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Games for playing in front of an open fire 
should be mostly thinking and guessing games. 
A child doesn't want to romp and play too much 
about the nursery in his slippers and bath gown. 
What he does want to do is to sit by the fire, 
curled up on the floor and just watch the coals 
while he makes his " thinking machine work" as 
Br'er Rabbit used to say. 

These are a few fireside games that will help 
a child to do just that. 

I Love My Love is played by a line of chil- 
dren, who start with a lot of questions about my 
Love which must be answered according to the 
letters of the alphabet. The A's might run this 
way: 

"I love my Love with an A, because he is 
Adorable. 

I hate him with an A because he is Ancient. 

He took me to Appledore and treated me to 
Arrowroot. 

His name is Ananias and he comes from Ayr- 
shire." 

The B's may run as follows: 

"I love my Love with a B, because he is Bril- 
liant. 

I hate him with a B, because he is Boorish. 



FIRESIDE GAMES 51 

He took me to Banbury and treated me to 
Barberries and Biscuits. 

His name is Bob and he comes from Babylon." 

Each child must tell the story and fill in the 
missing ideas in the sentences with words that 
begin with his special letter of the alphabet. 
Should he fail, or hesitate, another player may 
fill in the gap and move up the line after the 
manner of an old fashioned spelling match to 
take the place of the child who failed. The 
player who stays longest at the head of the line 
may have the biggest roasted apple for a prize. 

P's and Q's is another fine fireside game. The 
players sit in a circle and one stands, asking each 
in turn a question, as : 

"The Sultan of Turkey has gone forth with 
all his men to battle. Tell me where he has 
gone, but mind your P's and Q's. The child 
questioned must answer quickly, naming a city 
in Turkey beginning with a letter before P in the 
order of the alphabet. 

Another question is put, immediately — 

"The Sultan of Turkey with all his men was 
entertained at. Tell me where, and mind your 
P's and Q's." 

In replying, no letter of the alphabet used 
previously must be repeated so the game is a 



52 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

difficult one and a tax upon a child's wits. It 
has unlimited variations and may be applied to 
animals or flowers, or authors as well as geog- 
raphy. 

The questions may ask: 

'The circus has come to town, tell me which 
animal roared the loudest? 

Which came from Africa? 

Which had horns and hoofs? 

Which carried his home on his back? 

But mind your P's and Q's." 

Varying the game to make it a literary one, 
the child asks: 

"Charles Dickens wrote a book, tell me the 
title, but mind your P's and Q's." 

Each child questioned must answer quickly or 
he loses his place in the game, and he is obliged 
to pay a forfeit. 

The children sit in a row to play the Ship 
Alphabet. One child is chosen for the school- 
master and he asks the child at the head of the 
line: 

"The letter?" 

"B," answers the child, perhaps, although any 
letter may be chosen. 

"The name of the ship?" The schoolmaster 
then asks of the next child in the line. 



FIRESIDE GAMES 53 

"Bouncing Bet/' the child replies, or an 
equally absurd name which suggests itself to 
him. i 

"The name of the Captain?" is the next 
question. 

"The name of her cargo? The name of her 
port?" follow rapidly. As the schoolmaster 
puts each question, he counts ten and the child 
must answer the question within that time. This 
will be found difficult especially if the letter 
chosen was an unusual one. The successful 
players move up the line taking the places of 
those who failed. 

Making up limericks in front of an open fire 
will be found a whole lot of fun. A limerick is a 
jingling form of verse, quite unmistakable once 
one learns the swing of it, and the more nonsense 
a child puts into it, the funnier will it be. The 
best way to describe a limerick is to really quote 
one that some children made up one evening in 
the nursery. 

"There was a fat man of Tobago, 
Who lived on saltpetre and sago, 
When asked what he'd drink 
He said he'd take ink, 
Because it was good for lumbago." 



54 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

A group of children may play a game of Sug- 
gestions. The first child in the circle voices the 
first idea which comes to him — treacle perhaps, 
or something quite as absurd. The next player 
then gives immediately the idea suggested to 
him by treacle — jug perhaps, or bread. Follow- 
ing jug comes the next child's idea — potter 
and the fun of the game is to see how far, after 
one or two rounds, the children have gone from 
the first idea, or suggestion. 

Acting out one's favorite stories will afford 
a great deal of fireside fun. One child must 
leave the room, and those who remain decide 
what fairy or household tale they will act with- 
out costume or stage setting. If the story of 
Cinderella is chosen, the smallest little girl 
crouches by the fire, pretending to cry, while 
two larger children play that they are dressing 
themselves in all manner of finery and go through 
the pantomime of starting away for the ball. 
The child who went outside is then called back 
to the room and tries to guess the title of the 
story that is being acted. 

A very much simpler way of playing panto- 
mime is to imitate the occupations of various 
tradespeople, to pretend to saw like the car- 
penter, to plane like the joiner, to play at shoeing 



FIRESIDE GAMES 55 

a horse, or to imitate the movements of certain 
musicians. A child who has been hiding outside 
the room returns and tries to guess who is being 
impersonated. It will be very amusing too, 
to have animal pantomimes, to hop like a rabbit, 
growl like a tiger, or leap as does a rabbit, or a 
kangaroo, the other child trying to guess what 
animal in the zoo is really performing in front of 
the fire. And by this time, the fireside games 
will have grown so hilarious that mother will 
come upstairs saying, "Bed-time," and the 
games will have to be continued some other 
night. 






SNOW GAMES AND HOW TO PLAY 

THEM 

NOW is good for just three things in 
the game line. It is good to mark a 
child's footsteps in any sort of an 
exciting, trailing game. It is good 
to make more snow balls than a child can 
count — not to throw at the others but for playing 
snow ball games. It is good, too, to make snow 
forts and there are some fine ways of storming 
them. 
First come the fascinating trailing games. 
Fox and Goose will be a splendid follow-my- 
leader-sort of game to play some day after 
school when the ground is covered with a soft, 
light covering of snow that shows and holds the 



58 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

least mark of footsteps. One child should be 
chosen for the goose who is given perhaps a 
minute's start from the den. The den may be a 
big hole dug under a snow drift, or a corner of 
the garden wall, or just the door of the wood 
shed. The goose takes a very devious way, 
climbing or vaulting over fences, jumping cer- 
tain distances, sometimes going with a hop, skip 
or jump, walking backwards, turning around as 
he walks, or going in all manner of crooked, 
zig zag directions. The line of Foxes must fol- 
low the Goose, one at a time, keeping exactly 
in his tracks, and doing just what he is doing. 
Any Fox who fails to imitate and follow the 
Goose must drop out of the line. There is apt 
to be a very small following of Foxes when the 
clever Goose comes home again to his den. 

Another Fox and Goose game is played with a 
rather large circle marked out like a big wheel 
in the snow. It should be as wide in diameter 
as the field where the game is being played. 
The outer edge, or rim should be tramped down 
so as to make a running track in the snow. 
Around the edge of the circle as many dens as 
there are Geese are indicated. These dens may 
be small snow forts or just goals marked by 
twigs stuck in the snow. From each den, a 



SNOW GAMES 59 

path is tracked to the hub, or centre of the 
circle where the Fox stands. The Geese must 
run from one den to another as quickly as pos- 
sible, following the path which marks the rim of 
the circle. As they change places, the Fox 
tries to get into one of the dens. In doing this 
he must follow a track which stretches from the 
hub to the edge of the circle. He may not 
choose his direction. If he is unsuccessful in 
getting a den, he must return to the hub. If 
he gets into a den, the Goose who is left out 
must go to the centre of the circle and play the 
part of the Fox. 

A fine Animal Game can be played in the 
snow. Two long paths are marked across the 
field or garden, dividing it into two goals, the 
space between the lines being [occupied by the 
hunter and measuring perhaps twenty or thirty 
feet. The players divide themselves into two 
equal groups, each taking the name of a wild 
animal and placing themselves in either goal. 
The Hunter then calls the name of certain 
animals. 
"Tigers"— "Leopards"— or "Elephants." 
At this signal, the tigers, leopards or elephants 
from each side change goals, and the Hunter 
tries to bag them as they cross his territory. The 



60 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

game ends when the Hunter has succeeded in 
capturing all this big game. 

Now we will make a big pile of snow balls, as 
hard and round as possible, and play some Snow 
Ball games. 

A series of holes may be dug in the snow along 
the edge of the garden wall or by a fence. One 
player who is chosen as thrower tries to toss a 
snow ball into one of the holes. As soon as he is 
successful all the other players give chase and 
try to catch him. If he can run the length of 
the field and return to the hole where his snow 
ball is, without being tagged he may take his 
place with the other players and choose a second 
thrower. If he is tagged, he must continue to be 
thrower. 

A target may be marked in the snow, and a 
group of children forming a throwing line marked 
also in the snow at a distance of twenty feet 
away, try to hit the bulls eye with a snow ball. 
Each child throws in turn and has but one 
chance. A snow ball which hits the centre of the 
circle counts ten for the child who threw it, and 
a score of fifty wins the game. 

A circle of children, formed about one child 
who stands in the centre, may toss a hard snow 
ball from one to another, but always directly 



SNOW GAMES 61 

across the circle. The player, standing in the 
centre, tries to catch the ball as it flies across, 
and if he is successful he may take his place 
in the circle and the child who last touched the 
ball changes places with him. 

In another circle snow ball game, all the play- 
ers save one form a circle with a wide space be- 
tween each two. The odd player stands in the 
centre, holding a snow ball. He tosses the ball 
to some child standing in the circle, immediately 
running outside the circle. The player to whom 
the snow ball was tossed must catch it, lay it 
on the ground in the middle of the circle, give 
chase to the child who threw it and try to tag 
him before he, in turn, gets around the circle and 
picks up his snow ball in the centre again. 

Now for the Snow Forts. 

The simplest snow fort game and one that 
little children will find great delight in playing 
is to build one big wall of snow and set upon the 
top of it a row of gallant little snow men. The 
players then stand in a row the distance of the 
garden away from the snow wall and with iced 
snow balls, and in turn, try to see in how few 
shots they can knock a snow man down from 
his high place. 

A game that boys will enjoy may be played by 



62 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

two opposing teams, who build snow forts at 
opposite sides of the field. When the forts are 
ready for occupancy, the players crawl inside and 
put their caps in a row on top of the front wall of 
each fort. Provided with a good supply of snow 
balls they try to dislodge all the caps of the 
opposing team. If a player is hit by a snow ball 
he is out of the game, temporarily, and an 
umpire should be chosen to see that he stays 
out. The team knocking off all the caps from 
the opposite fort first, wins the game. 

Robber and Castle is a fine snow fort game. 
For playing the game it will not be necessary to 
build a large, complete fort. Just two walls 
will be sufficient shelter for the players who live 
in the castle. The robber crouches at the far- 
ther end of the field on the opposite side of a 
line drawn in the snow, with his back to the fort. 
The players creep out of the fort, cross the field 
and try to capture him, but he in turn, if he 
hears them coming, may tag one of their num- 
ber. Any child tagged by the robber must take 
his place, while the robber goes over to the snow 
fort to live with the other players. 

The Russian little folks have invented a 
splendid snow ball game to be played when the 
ground is covered with a fine, hard crust. As 



SNOW GAMES 63 

many children as wish may play this game. A 
row of holes is dug in the snow, each hole the 
right size to hold a fair-sized snow ball. The 
holes are put in a straight line, about four or 
five feet apart and there must as be many holes 
as there are children playing the game. Each 
hole is numbered, as are also the children and 
the holes may be marked by little paper or cloth 
flags, lettered and fastened to twigs which are 
thrust in the ground at the side of each hole. A 
distance of a rod from the first hole and in line 
with it, a red flag is put in the snow to indicate 
the throwing point. The player who is num- 
bered one stands by the red flag and tosses a snow 
ball into a hole. He scores as many points as 
are indicated by the marker. Hole three counts 
three for him — hole ten counts ten. As soon as he 
made his hole, he steps back and gives his place 
to the player whose number corresponds to the 
number of the last hole the previous player 
made. The game continues until a previously 
arranged score is made by one child. Fifty is 
a fine score and one will be found sufficiently 
easy to make. The snow balls used in this 
game should be very round, hard and iced — the 
sort of a snow ball that hurts when it hits you, 
but is fine and lasting to play ball with. 



64 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

A soft snow ball that won't hurt a child 
should be used to play the jolly game of Johny 
Jump Up which by the way, is so strenuous that 
it scares Jack Frost away and results in rosy 
cheeks and warm toes and tingling fingers on the 
very coldest day. The players count out to see 
which child shall have the first chance to throw 
the snow ball. As soon as a leader is chosen, 
the other players run as far away from him as 
possible. The leader then throws the snow ball, 
trying to hit one of the retreating players and 
calling out at the same time: 

"Johnny Jump Up." 

The player hit must leave the field, but 
whether or not the leader succeeds in hitting a 
child, at the word "Johnny Jump Up," all the 
players scramble for the snow ball and the child 
who gets it may be the next thrower. The 
players scatter again to escape being hit by the 
snow ball and again try to get it, the game being 
won by the man who, at the end of fifteen 
minutes has been thrower the greatest number 
of times. 

The old delightful game of Hare and Hounds 
can be played better in the snow than when the 
ground is clear. Every child knows how to play 
the game and every child, too, will tell you that it 



SNOW GAMES 65 

affords more fun on a Saturday afternoon than 
almost any other form of sport. Several chil- 
dren are chosen for Hounds and they hide in a 
den which may be a snow fort, back of a big 
snow drift, or in a corner of the garden wall. 
The Hare is given a fair start from the den. If 
the game is to cover a large space of ground, he 
ought to be allowed five minutes at least. He 
may double in his tracks, stop in any available 
hiding place until his pursuers pass, or walk 
along a stone wall or fence to break the trail, 
which his footsteps make in the snow. The 
Hounds try to break line and catch him before 
he travels back to the den. 

The Indians play a fine game called Snow 
Snake. The ''Snakes" are long, straight sticks 
having some weight. These may be whittled 
from branches. The game consists of skimming 
the snakes across a sheet of ice or over the crust 
of the snow as one skips stones across the pond 
in the summer time. Each stick is notched with 
one, two, three, four, or five notches and each 
player should whittle himself a number of these 
sticks. The players stand in a row and take 
turns skimming the snakes. When the last 
player has thrown his last stick, that snake 
which went the farthest is picked up, and it 



66 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

scores as many points for the player who threw 
it as there are notches on the stick. All the 
sticks are then gathered up and tossed to one side, 
and each player throws again with a fresh stick 
from his bundle. This is continued until all the 
sticks are used up. The game is won by the 
player with the highest score. 






RAINY SUNDAY GAMES 

UNDA Y afternoon is always the longest 
afternoon of the whole week even if 
a child goes to Sunday School, and 
dinner is an hour later than usual. 
Perhaps it is a rainy Sunday afternoon as 
well as a long one, and all the grown folks are 
taking naps and there is no one to amuse one. 
A child isn't supposed to play the old, favorite 
week day plays on Sunday. What shall he do 
to amuse himself during the long hours that 
stretch from the end of Sunday dinner to bed 
time Sunday night? 

Why, he may entertain himself with some 
especially nice Sunday plays, plays that will be 
so different from those of Saturday or any of the 



68 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

other ordinary days that they will make Sunday 
seem like the nicest day of the whole week. 

A Sunday afternoon may be given up to 
drawing Bible pictures in the library. The 
neighborhood children are all invited to come to 
this picture afternoon, and they pull their chairs 
up close to the long library table upon which are 
spread some fresh sheets of white drawing paper, 
some nicely sharpened pencils, and a few boxes 
of colored crayons with which to color the pic- 
tures after they are drawn. It is a quiet, draw- 
ing contest. No one helps his neighbor, or looks 
over his neighbor's shoulder to see what he is 
drawing. When each child has finished a picture 
the drawings are all collected and pinned up 
about the library. Then, with pencils and pa- 
pers, the children move around the room, look- 
ing at the pictures in this little art gallery and 
writing down the names of the Bible stories 
which they suppose the pictures represent. A 
picture of a little boy wearing a many colored 
coat illustrates the story of Joseph, a sling, 
the story of David and Goliath, a picture of a 
penny, the parable of the widow's mite, a fish, 
the parable of the loaves and fishes, and an ark 
or some animals walking in pairs, the story of 
the flood. There are ever so many Bible 



RAINY SUNDAY PLAYS 69 

stories which children can illustrate with pic- 
tures, and the drawing and guessing of story 
names will occupy, delightfully, a whole after- 
noon. 

Another rainy Sunday play for the younger 
children may be the making of a Sunday scrap 
book. Some sheets of tinted paper or brown 
linen are bound with passe patout binding and 
fastened together at the back with paper fas- 
teners, forming the leaves of the scrap book. At 
the top of each leaf of the book a text is printed, 
or written, to be illustrated by pictures cut from 
old magazines and mounted on the page beneath 
the text. In the case of a linen scrap book, the 
texts from Sunday School, printed on cards, may 
be glued to the cloth. Another way of making a 
Sunday scrap book is to collect as many Madon- 
na pictures as possible and mount them, writing 
under each the name of the artist and the year 
when the picture was painted. This scrap book 
will be a very beautiful one indeed to keep and 
look at on very special occasions. 

There are a few games that a group of children 
may play Sunday afternoon; quiet games, just 
suited to the day. There may be a Sunday text 
match. The children are seated or stand in 
line, as they would for an old fashioned spelling 



70 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

match. The leader gives out a letter in the 
alphabet, and each child recites a text beginning 
with that letter. If a child fails, he must go 
down the line as one does in a real spelling match, 
giving place to the child who successfully recited 
a text. It will be a most exciting match for the 
child who knows a great many texts, and stays 
longest at the head of the line. 

Another Sunday game is played like the game 
of Twenty Questions. One child of a group 
leaves the room, and while he is gone, the others 
decide upon some Bible character whose name 
he is to guess. The child, returning to the room 
may ask each child of the group one question: 

" Where did the person live?" 

"What did he do?" 

"How was he dressed?" 

"What book of the Bible gives his history?" 

Sunday Clocks form a novel form of Sunday 
amusement. A circle is drawn by each child 
on rather a large piece of paper and it is divided 
into twelve sections which are numbered like a 
clock face from I to XII. Then each child 
writes in the upper section of the clock face 
marked I, a noun which may be any word at all; 
love, snow, wool, sheep, child. As soon as the 
nouns are written in, the children exchange 



RAINY SUNDAY PLAYS 71 

clocks, and using their Testaments for reference 
try to find eleven texts relating to the subject 
indicated by the noun at the top of their card and 
write them neatly in the different spaces indi- 
cated on the clock faces. The child who finishes 
first receives some simple reward. 

Telling Hymns is a means of helping chil- 
dren to memorize some of the beautiful old 
church poems which form a part of the world's 
literature, and are too often neglected in the 
child's school education. The players are seated 
in a row and the method of playing the game 
follows that of the ever delightful spelling match. 
The child who sits at the head of the line re- 
cites the first line of a well known, beautiful 
hymn, as: 

"The shadows of the evening hour," 

The child who sits next to him in the line 
takes up the verse if he can, reciting: 

"Fall from the darkening sky." 
The third child continues: 
'Upon the fragrance of the flowers," 
And the fourth child ends the verse: 
The shades of evening lie." 

Each child takes up the hymn where the child 



li- 



iit 



72 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

before him left it until the verse is complete. 

"Before Thy throne, oh, Lord of Heaven, 
We kneel at close of day. 
Oh, listen to Thy servant's needs, 
And hear us while we pray." 

If the line of children is long enough the re- 
maining verses may be repeated, or the child at 
the head may start the next verse. Any child 
who misses, and is not able to repeat his line 
when his turn comes has to go to the foot of the 
line, and the child who stays longest at the head 
of the line wins the game. A few minutes or a 
half hour devoted to hymns in this way every 
Sunday afternoon will teach children a great 
many of these wonderful old poems which will 
make their future lives fuller and richer because 
they formed part of childhood's days. 






SUNDAY HAND WORK 

BOX of empty spools, twist, basting 
cotton, or sewing silk spools collected 
by mother and only produced on 
Sunday afternoon will prove a de- 
lightful means of helping the children to repro- 
duce certain types of Bible architecture. If 
a thread factory is available any number of 
fresh, new spools of the same size may be bought 
at a slight expense and the Bible forms which the 
children make with them may be glued together 
so as to form permanent toys for Sunday use. 
A pillar made of three or four spools form the 
basis of this building, and these spool pillars are 
combined to make walls, gates, a pipe organ for a 
doll's Sunday School, or even a temple with a 



74 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

card board roof which will closely resemble one 
of the old Hebrew buildings when it is done. 

A pound of prepared modeling clay, kept also 
for Sunday use only, will prove a means of en- 
tertainment and education for children. With 
it the children may learn to mould simple objects 
which relate to Bible stories. The tools for 
home clay work are simple and easy to procure. 
A broad, flat wooden knife and a board — these 
are all that are necessary. The baby of three 
or four will be able to roll two lumps of clay into 
ball form in the palms of his hands and then 
flatten them with his thumbs to represent the 
stones between which his little Bible cousins 
ground their grain. Another lump of clay may 
be rolled, spherical, and hollowed to make a 
basket which may be filled with clay loaves and 
fishes. The older children will soon learn to 
model vases, drinking vessels similar to those we 
find pictured in Bible lore, tiny clay bricks which 
may be combined to build walls and sheep folds, 
and even make tiny models of the lamps used 
in the old world temples. 

A tin tray of sand will prove another Sunday 
delight for little folks and a means of teaching 
them Bible stories as well as entertaining them. 
A tinsmith will make a zinc tray eighteen inches 



SUNDAY HAND WORK 75 

wide, by twenty-four inches long, and three 
inches deep. This tray will cost only a few 
cents and the sand to fill it will cost still less. 
For purposes of modeling the sand should be 
slightly wet, and with the sand tray all sorts of 
delightful pictures may be constructed by a 
child. The roads, lakes, and hills, and moun- 
tains of Palestine may be moulded. Twigs 
wound with fringed green tissue paper will look 
like tiny trees and may be stuck in the deep 
sand to outline the little roads. Small card- 
board models of the low flat houses of Palestine 
may be dotted in among the trees, and walls may 
be built of pebbles or clay bricks. A flock of 
white paper sheep having cotton batting glued 
to their backs to represent wool may stand 
under the toy trees in the sand field to illustrate 
the story of the Good Shepherd. Another tiny 
landscape illustrates the story of the wise men. 
The sand is smoothed down to represent the 
desert, and pine twigs standing in the sand look 
like palm trees. Toy camels bearing dolls 
dressed in imitation of the magi may walk across 
the play desert, or brown paper camels will be 
quite as realistic. A tent made of red calico 
or white paper painted in oriental colors com- 
pletes the tiny landscape. 





RING GAMES 

ING TAG is always a favorite. The 
children in the circle clasp their hands 
behind their backs. One child, 
chosen by the others, goes outside the 
circle, running lightly around two or three times 
until he decides to tag some one, whose clasped 
hands he touches. The child tagged must try 
and catch the other before he reaches the place 
left vacant in the ring. A group of children will 
play this game for a half hour at a time without 
tiring. 

A pretty Greeting Game is played by one child 
standing in the centre of the circle (and reaching 
out his right hand to some one whom he wishes 
to choose. The child chosen comes into the 



78 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

centre of the circle) shakes hands with and 
courtesies to the first child who bows in turn and 
goes back to the ring, leaving the child he chose 
to go on with the game. This is an especially 
charming game for a child's party, when it may 
be done to minuet music played on the piano. 

The Sheep game is always a prime favorite. 
The child who stands in the centre of the ring, 
impersonates a farmer who has lost a sheep. 
He asks a child who stands in the circle : 

"Have you seen my sheep?" 

The child who is questioned answers, "yes," 
and immediately faces about, standing with his 
back to the others. 

"How did it look?" the farmer asks. 

The second child at once describes the dress 
of one of the other children. 

"Your sheep had a red dress and a white 
apron — " or 

"Your sheep had pink hair ribbons — " or 

"Your sheep had a white suit." 

The child described must run quickly about 
the outside of the circle, followed by the farmer. 
If he is caught before he gets inside the circle, 
he must be the next farmer. This game is 
wonderfully educative along the line of attention. 
Every child must listen to see who is described. 



RING GAMES 79 

The jolly miller is played by a circle of couples. 
One child stands in the centre, impersonating 
the miller. The couples on the outside march 
around the miller, chanting: 

"Oh, jolly is the miller 
Who lives by the mill. 
The wheel goes round 
With a right good will. 
One hand in the hopper, 
And the other in the sack, 
The right steps forward, 
And the left steps back." 

At the end of the rhyme, the children all 
change partners. The child at the right of each 
couple steps forward one place, and the child 
at the left steps back. During the change, the 
miller must try and find a partner. If he is 
successful, the child left out must go in the 
centre and be the next miller. 

An old English Maying game may be played 
by the children forming in two lines of equal 
length. The words are sung to the tune of 
"London Bridge is Falling Down." 

The children face each other, enough space 
being left between the lines to admit of them 
walking forward and backward. 



80 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The verses are sung alternately as the chil- 
dren march: 

1. "Here we come gathering boughs in May, 
Boughs in May, 
Boughs in May; 

Here we come gathering boughs in May, 
This bright and happy morning. ' ' 

2 "Whom would you like for your bough in 

May, etc." 

3. "We would like Jean for our bough in 
May." 

4. "Jean you may have for your bough in 
May." 

5. "Whom will you choose to pull her away?" 

6. "We will have Jack to pull her away." 
At the end of the sixth verse, the children 

chosen, being equally matched, have a jolly tug 
of war to see which line is the stronger. 

A game that little children enjoy hugely is the 
Zoo game. 

Two lines of equal length are formed as for 
the Maying game. The lines stand, facing each 
other on opposite sides of the room. One line 
marches across to meet the other, singing: 

"I went to visit the Zoo one day, 
The animals all were out at play — 
They marched along in a big parade 
And then they all did tricks this way." 



RING GAMES 



81 



The opposite line of children marches to meet 
the other line, impersonating some circus animal. 
They leap like kangaroos, growl like tigers, or 
swing along with the stride of elephants. The 
children in the first line try to guess the animal 
impersonated and then take their turn at being 
animals. A simple prize will delight the child 
who is able to guess the most animals. 

A variation of the Zoo game is known as the 
Barnyard. The children march in lines, but 
sing: 

"Oh, say little lassie will you go with me 
To the gay green fields away? 
Oh, say little lassie will you go with me, 
And feed the sheep, today?" 

The opposite children must try to imitate the 
animals mentioned in the song. A cow, a pig, 
a duck, or a horse may be substituted. The 
child who is unable to do the impersonating must 
pay a forfeit. 






GAMES FOR THE RAILROAD TRAIN 

HAT shall the children do to keep 
happy, and sweet, and contented 
through a long, dusty day of trav- 
eling? 

Perhaps it is to be an all day journey. Even 
the vision of the great big farm at the end where 
the vacation days are to be spent, or the ocean 
with its great expanse of beach waiting tor a 
child's play is not sufficient to compensate for 
all the fatigue that the noisy, tiresome, train day 
brings. 

All the children, big and little, have come. 
There has been the excitement of ticket pur- 
chasing, and the bother about the trunks. There 
are so many other people on the train who are 



84 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

tired, too, and do not want youngsters running 
up and down the aisle. 

It does seem a problem — this train "what-to- 
do" question, but it may be so easily solved if 
mother has been thoughtful and remembered in 
packing, to put near the top of the suitcase a sort 
of Aladdin box which will prove a boon in this 
emergency. 

Just a flat box, it will be, filled with some home 
busy work materials which take up very little 
room and will keep both the older and younger 
children happy for hours at a time. The box 
should hold a neatly sharpened pencil for each 
of the older children and a ten cent box of colored 
crayons for the younger ones. There should be 
a few sheets of white tracing paper, pads of 
unruled, rather heavy white paper, a pair of 
blunt pointed scissors, a box of letters and some 
gay pictures cut at random from the children's 
old toy picture books or the advertising sections 
of magazines. If one can find them, illustrated 
catalogues from a furniture store will add very 
materially to the kit, and one or two flat tissue 
paper balloons which can be bought for a few 
cents may also be packed in the box. 

When the children begin to show signs of rest- 



RAILROAD TRAIN GAMES 85 

lessness, the magic box may be produced and all 
its possibilities exploited. 

The baby must be amused first. The car 
window is open a crack, and he is determined to 
put his fingers underneath and squeeze his fat 
little hand through. One of the paper balloons 
may be taken out of the box, tied with a bit of 
the lunch box string, and tossed out through the 
window. As the baby holds the string tightly 
inside, the air inflates the toy and the balloon 
floats gaily along with the train just outside the 
window, affording the little man a lot of fun and 
keeping him quiet and happy for a long time. If 

an accident happens to the balloon and it tears, 
a second one may be easily substituted, or just 
a scrap of paper may be torn kite shape and 
attached to the string and allowed to fly along 
outside the window. 

The little folks of six or seven may have a 
train dolls' house. If they sit on the inverted 
suit case on the floor, the empty seat in front of 
them will serve for a plush carpeted doll's room, 
and the change of position will be a rest for tired 
little limbs. Mother finds the scissors, the fur- 
niture catalogues, and some pins. Cutting out 
the furniture pictures will be a fascinating occu- 
pation for the children and when enough pieces 



86 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

have been cut to furnish a room they may be 
fastened, upright, to the seat with pins. The 
white paper may be folded and cut into long 
sheets of paper dolls who live in the doll house, 
and all sorts of happy, little girl plays will be the 
result. 

Next, the children may trace pictures. One 
of the scrap pictures with a square of the tracing 
paper laid over it, is held against the glass of 
the train window. It's outline, which is very 
plain because of the light which shines through 
the glass, should be carefully traced with a lead 
pencil on the tracing paper. The tracing paper 
is then laid, face down, on the white pad and 
each line is retraced, leaving a finished picture 
outline on the pad. This new picture may be 
colored with the colored crayons and the chil- 
dren will be delighted to make dozens of them. 

Perhaps, now, the baby has grown tired of his 
balloon and kite play. He may rest himself by 
sitting on the floor on the suit case and pricking 
pictures on the cushioned seat. A large easily 
outlined picture should be chosen. The picture 
is laid upon a sheet of stiff, white paper, and fas- 
tened to the seat by pins stuck in at the corners 
The child is given a hat pin, or brother's scarf 
pin and punches holes at equal distance in the 



RAILROAD TRAIN GAMES 87 

outline of the picture, making a charming 
pricked picture on the white paper. A folded 
steamer rug may also be utilized as a cushion for 
this occupation. 

The children will be able to play all sorts of 
interesting Train Observation Games. Each 
child is given a piece of w r riting paper and a 
pencil. As the train dashes through the country 
at express speed, they put down on the slips of 
paper the names of as many objects as possible 
seen from the car window. Two children seated 
on opposite sides of the car can play this game, 
and before starting on the contest a score must 
be decided upon. Some objects will be seen 
over and over again and should score fewer 
points, and other objects will be rare and difficult 
to see. Farm houses should count only one 
point, as do also bridges, and brooks, and barns. 
But a thrush, or a black sheep, or a wild rose 
bush should count highe/ — three, perhaps. At 
the end of the game, and the distance between 
stations may constitute the time limit, the 
player with the highest score on his sheet of 
paper wins. 

At the railway station, the children may write 
down a list of the objects they see in the con- 
course — an occupation that will help them to 



88 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

stay in their seats rather than run out to the 
platform. 

These Observation Games may have a great 
many variations. A special class of objects may 
be watched for and written down: A hemlock 
tree, a squirrel on a wall, a mile stone, or a flock 
of birds. The child who first sees and writes 
down the object decided upon at the beginning 
of the game is counted the winner. 

While the children are using their pencils, they 
will find it an interesting occupation to trace with 
the squares of tracing paper, the maps of the 
country through which they are traveling that are 
printed on the time tables. 

When it is no longer possible to look out of the 
window, and the train lights are lit, it will be 
fun to have a short story game, or to play some 
games with the box of letters. 

A sentence beginning a story is written at the 
top of a sheet of paper, and the paper is folded 
over so that the sentence is concealed. The 
paper is passed to the next player who, in his 
turn, writes a sentence, folds it over and passes 
the paper to a third child. When the paper has 
gone the rounds two or three times, the story is 
unfolded and read — and it will be very funny 
indeed. 



RAILROAD TRAIN GAMES 89 

The conductor will put up one of the train 
card tables for the children's letter game. The 
letters may be distributed among the players, 
face downward. Each player then turns up at 
random one of his letters and puts it in the mid- 
dle of the table. As soon as a player sees a word 
in this group of letters, he calls it out, and puts 
the word in front of him. Words suggested by 
the train; engine, cat, driver, smoke stack, etc., 
should count as two and the player having the 
most words when all the letters are used, wins the 
game. 

With these varied occupations the long rail- 
road journey will be happily accomplished, and 
the children will find a day in the crowded train 
as much fun as one of the vacation days in the 
country. 





PENCIL AND PAPER GAMES 




BIG pad of charming, clean, white 
squares of paper, a new red pencil with 
a fine, fresh, sharp point. A roaring 
fire in the nursery grate, and all the 
other children sitting with you around the 
nursery table. Is not that a splendid recipe 
for a happy evening? It is ever so much fun to 
romp and play in the garden, but when the long 
shut-in evenings come in the fall, the children 
will be able to find great pleasure in some quiet, 
pencil and paper games. 

There is a funny Cake Game which you can 
play with pencil and paper. The child who is 
the leader gives out the questions, and the 
other children try to guess the answers, writing 



92 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

them down in the order in which the leader gave 
them out. These are a few of the possible 
questions: 

What kind of cake would a little cook bake for 

A milkman — Cream cake. 

A milliner — Ribbon cake. 

A farmer — Fruit cake. 

A geologist — Layer cake. 

A carpenter — Plain (plane) cake. 

A dog-catcher — Pound cake. 

A baby — Patty cake. 

There are so many kinds of cake and a clever 
child will be able to think of a variety for every 
sort of person, so that the game will prove a jolly 
one, indeed. 

If the children are able to remember all the 
pretty things which grew in the garden in the 
summer, they can play a Garden Game. Each 
player puts down on his paper what he planted 
in a play garden — and it should be a queer seed, 
although he must have in mind when he writes 
it some variety of garden thing that might come 
up from such planting. The papers are then 
collected and given out again, each child trying 
to answer the question which he finds, on his new 
paper. 

Here are some of the seeds and their crops: 



PENCIL AND PAPER GAMES 93 

I planted an Oxford wise man. Scarlet sage 
came up. 

I planted Old Glory — Flags came up. 

I planted Cupid's arrows — Bleeding Hearts 
came up. 

I planted something that Cinderella lost — 
Lady Slippers came up. 

When all the answers are finished, the papers 
are again collected and read to see how funny 
are the results. 

You can play Circus, too. Each child takes 
the name of an animal in the circus, and it will 
be a jollier game if long names are chosen, as 
hippopotamus, camelopard, kangaroo, or alli- 
gator. The players are then given numbered 
slips, from one to ten which are piled in front of 
them, but in no regular order. Each child then 
turns up one slip, placing it on the table so that 
the other children may see the number first. As 
soon as the numbers appearing on two slips are 
the same, the two players must shout out each 
other's names and the one who is able to remem- 
ber the name first may give his slip to the other 
child. That child wins the game who is able 
first to give away all his slips. 

These are all writing games, but there are 



94 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

other quite as pleasant things which a child 
can do with pencil and paper. 

A Dot Menagerie will be most exciting to 
make. Each child in the group seated about 
the nursery table draws five rather large pencil 
dots on a piece of paper, the dots being scattered 
far apart. The players then exchange their 
papers and try to so connect the dots by lines 
as to make a wild animal. Such funny results 
as there will be! One should really have a 
prize for the best dot animal. 

A different way of playing this game is for 
each child to draw a circle, or a crooked, twisted 
line, or just four straight lines in different places 
on the paper, and then, after the papers are ex- 
changed, each child tries to make some sort of 
picture on the paper which fell to his share. 

Progressive Pictures is another funny pencil 
and paper game. The children will need larger 
sheets of paper for playing it. The first child 
suggests an object which all the others, including 
himself, must draw. Perhaps it is a tree, or a 
fence, or a barn. The next player then suggests 
an addition to the picture — a boy in the tree 
flying a balloon, or a rooster on the fence, or a 
squirrel or a rabbit on the wall. So the game 
goes on, each player suggesting a new object 



PENCIL AND PAPER GAMES 95 

which every one must put in his picture, and the 
fun is to see which paper proves big enough to 
hold all the objects. 

Every nursery has a Noah's Ark, and the little 
wooden animals and people and trees may fur- 
nish some more helps to pencil and paper fun. 
A child may lay the animals and other figures 
on his sheet of paper, carefully drawing the 
outline with a sharp pencil. These outlines may 
be colored with crayons and then the pictures 
are cut out with the nursery scissors. 

By the time all these fascinating little paper 
figures have been made and laid out in a long 
parade on the nursery table, it will be bed time. 
The pencil and paper fun is over, but it made the 
evening very short, did it not? 






THANKSGIVING GAMES 

AMES for the Thanksgiving house 
party may be delightfully funny and 
as undignified as possible. The more 
ludicrous they are, the more charm 
they will have foy the guests who celebrate this 
sweetest of all our holidays by playing children 
and growing young again. The games de- 
scribed will form a jolly program of entertain- 
ment for the evening which follows the Thanks- 
giving dinner. 

Barnyard Blind Man's Buff starts the list of 
games and is warranted to break up any row of 
wall flowers. As in the old favorite game of 
Blind Man's Buff, the players form a large circle 
about one player who is blindfolded. The 



98 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

circle moves about quickly, two or three times, 
and then stops, the blind man pointing a wand, 
or cane which he holds at one of the players who 
grasps it, and must immediately imitate the 
gobble of the Thanksgiving turkey, the crowing 
of chanticler, the baying of the barnyard donkey, 
or any of the sounds of the barnyard folks he 
chooses. The blind man tries to recognize the 
person's identity by the sound of his voice, no 
easy task, because the player is at liberty to 
disguise his speaking tones in any way he likes. 
The blind man has three guesses, and if he is 
successful in giving the player's name, he takes 
his place in the circle and the player whose 
identity was discovered is the next blind man. 

Shooting the Turkey follows as the next game 
on the program. A paper turkey, painted as 
gaily as possible with water colors, is fastened 
to a sheet of white paper, which is in turn fas- 
tened by thumb tacks to the wall. On the 
sheet, and around the turkey, black crayon lines 
indicate the target. The bows with which the 
guests are provided are made of curved willow 
twigs strung with elastic bands. Straight twigs 
having two or three hens' feathers tied to the 
end made the arrows. The guests stand at the 
end of the room opposite the target and shoot 



THANKSGIVING GAMES 99 

in turn, a prize rewarding the archer who hits 
the turkey bulls eye the greatest number of 
times. 

A Turkey Hunt comes next. A large number 
of tiny turkeys are cut from brown paper and 
hidden in all sorts of out of the way places in the 
room in which the game is being played. Each 
player is provided with a small basket tied with 
ribbons — the basket being dainty enough to 
form a party souvenir, and at a signal everybody 
begins hunting for turkeys, filling their baskets 
as quickly as possible. At the end of five min- 
utes the hunt stops and a prize is awarded the 
player who can count the most turkeys in his 
basket. 

The Thanksgiving guests will be ready to 
abandon these strenuous exercises soon, for a 
series of Progressive games arranged for them at 
a number of small card tables in another room. 
Four or six guests may be accomodated at each 
table, and at the end of each game they move 
on one table, the players at the table next them 
taking their places. The names of winners at 
each table are kept by an umpire who does not 
take part in the games, and a prize is awarded 
the person who wins the greatest number of 
games. 



100 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

At the first table, big red apples, cloves, tooth 
picks and fruit knives are found, and the players 
make faces on the apples within a certain time 
limit, the game being won by the player whose 
apple on the umpire's decision presents the most 
grotesque face. It is possible to cut the apple 
skin in curls for these quaint figures, to carve 
most realistic features with the fruit knives, and 
the Apple Contest will prove one of the most 
popular in the game series. 

At the next table, Peanut Jackstraws is 
played. A pile of peanuts lies in the middle of 
the table, and the players are given tiny fish 
poles with which to pull them out. These poles 
can be easily made at home. A wood meat 
skewer, wound with very narrow orange ribbon 
forms the handle, and a length of orange twine 
the line, to the end of which is tied a hook made 
of a bent hairpin. The players try to fish out 
as many peanuts as possible without moving 
any except the one for which they are fishing. 
As soon as a player disturbs the pile of peanuts 
he loses his turn, and must wait until each of 
the other players has fished. The biggest pile 
of peanuts wins the game, and the players move 
on to the next table. 

The next table is given up to a Nut Guessing 



THANKSGIVING GAMES 101 

Contest. The players find slips of paper with 
the following lists of questions to which in fifteen 
minutes they must write the answers. 

There can be no comparison of answers or 
helps of any kind, and the longest list of correct 
answers wins the game. 

What nut grows at the seashore? Beechnut. 

What nut encloses a city in China? Walnut. 

What nut does a schoolmaster love? Hick- 
ory nut. 

What nut did Captain Kid use? Chest-nut. 

What nut colors eyes? Hazel nut. 

And as many other queer nuts as the clever 
hostess can think of. 

When the possibilities of the Progressive 
Game tables are exhausted, some freak feats 
will form a jolly end to the party. In one room 
a peanut maze has been prepared. A twisting, 
winding path outlined on either side by rows of 
peanuts, and oniy six inches wide is laid on the 
carpet. The guests start threading the maze 
in a long line. Any person who loses his balance 
or steps upon a peanut is disqualified at once, 
and at the end of five minutes the line will be a 
very short one. Another ludicrous peanut game 
calls for four chairs, two side by side and two 
opposite the length of the room from the first 



102 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

ones. In two of the chairs that stand side by 
side there are piles of peanuts, the same number 
in each pile. Two guests station themselves 
by these chairs and with spoons carry the pea- 
nuts, one at a time, to the opposite chairs. The 
player who finishes first wins a prize. 






GAMES TO PLAY AT ANY PARTY 

HERE are so many of them, it isn't 
easy to write about party games in one 
short story. Do you remember the 
last party to which you were invited? 
You thought that you were going to have the 
jolliest sort of a time. All the nicest girls and 
the boys from your class in school were there — 
and then, what happened? Why, everybody 
just sat around the edges of the room. The 
boys all sat on one side, and the girls all sat on 
the other side, listening to the clock ticking, 
and wondering when it would be time for sup- 
per. 
What was the trouble? 



104 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Why, just this! Nobody could think of any 
good games to play. 

Just read about these games, and don't for- 
get how to play them when you are next invited 
to a party, start some of them and see what a 
splendid time you will have. 

Suppose we begin with some new methods of 
playing Blind Man's Buff; that is always such a 
favorite game with every child. ■ 

Light a candle and hold it as high as a child's 
head. Place the player a few feet away from 
it, facing it, so that he is quite sure that he knows 
exactly where it is. Blindfold him, and turn 
him around three times. Then ask him to blow 
out the candle. The other children will have 
more fun than the blind man in this game, as he 
puffs out his cheeks and blows and blows, and 
can't blow out the candle. 

Another still funnier blind man's game calls 
for two players. Their eyes are covered, and 
they are seated on the floor, an arm's length 
apart. Each player is then given a teaspoonful 
of sugar and the Blind tries to feed the Blind. 
You would best put a sheet down on the floor 
before this fun begins, and tie a towel around 
each blind man's neck, for it will be rather a 



GAMES TO PLAY AT ANY PARTY 105 

messy game, but a very jolly one for the children 
who are looking on. 

Just two more variations of Blind Man's Buff! 

One of them is called Apple Snapping. A 
large, rosy apple is suspended from a string in 
the center of the room, at the height of the blind 
man's head. He is then led to a spot in the room 
directly under the apple, and his hands are tied 
behind his back securely. He must try and bite 
the apple if he can. 

The last of these games is known as Bag and 
Wand. A paper bag full of candy is hung in 
the center of the room. The child who is blind- 
folded is given a long stick, is whirled quickly 
about two or three times, and is then told to try 
and hit the bag of sweets. He may have three 
shots. If he fails each time, a second blind man 
is chosen. When some child is so successful 
as to hit the bag and break it, the sweets all 
scatter on the floor, and there is a merry romp 

as the party guests gather up the candies. 

Now for some games in which a great many 
boys and girls can take part. You may play 
Caterpillar by having a circle of chairs, enough 
for all the players save one who stands in the 
center of the circle. At a given signal, the 
players all stand and move around the circle, 



106 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

each child changing his seat for the one next 
to him. As the players move the child in the 
center tries to get a chair for himself. If he is 
successful, the child who is left without a chair 
must be the next caterpillar. 

While the children are seated in a ring, they 
may play a quieter game, and go shopping. The 
child who starts the game says to his neighbor 
at the left: 

' 'I have been very busy all day shopping.' ' 

' 'What did you buy?" asks the child to whom 
he spoke. 

The first child must then give the name of 
some article that he can touch without leaving 
his chair; boots, or ribbon, or watch chain, or 
necktie. Then the game goes on, and when the 
questions and answers have gone around the 
circle two or three times, you will see how diffi- 
cult it will be to find the answers. 

Playing Advertising Pictures is a lot of fun. 
All the players save one stand in a ring. The 
last child stands in the center of the ring, holding 
a sofa pillow. He counts ten slowly, throwing 
the pillow at a child who must catch it, and call 
out the name of some well-known advertising 
picture before ten is reached in the counting. 
The advertisements must not be repeated, so 



t (t 



GAMES TO PLAY AT ANY PARTY 107 

the game is difficult as well as jolly. You may 
change this game by calling for the names of 
patent medicines, or flowers, or quotations with 
the name of the author, or modern inventions. 
Now we will take a voyage to some foreign 
land and play Pirates. The players stand in a 
circle. One child starts the game by saying: 
i 'My ship has come home from India." 

The next child answers: 

'What has it brought?" 

Tea," says the first child, pretending to 
drink a cup of tea. 

All the children then copy the motion, as the 
second player says: 

'My ship has come home from France." 

'What did it bring?" is the question. 

'Snuff boxes," is the answer, at which all the 
players must begin sneezing in addition to drink- 
ing tea 

A third ship may bring a piano, and a fourth 
may carry bicycles. All the motions suggested 
by the cargoes must be imitated by the players, 
with a forfeit to be paid by the child who doesn't 
keep them all going at once. You may readily 
see the romp which will follow. 



i r 

i « 




HOUSE PARTY GAMES 




[IRD'S Nest calls for a big room, and 
all the furniture set back against the 
wall. Two opposite corners are 
marked off by chairs at one end of the 
room, one being the birds' nest, and one the cage. 
A mother bird is chosen for the nest, and two bird 
catchers who stand midway between the cage 
and the nest. All the other children, taking the 
names of different birds, hide in the nest with the 
mother. At a given signal, the bird catchers 
call out the name of some bird and all the 
children bearing that name must run from their 
corner to the cage in the opposite corner, chased 
by the bird catchers. The mother bird runs, 
too, trying to protect the birds with her out- 



110 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

stretched arms. Any bird caught as it flies 
across the room must take its turn at being a 
bird catcher. 

The Belled Cat is a new way of playing Blind 
Man's Buff. All the players save one tie their 
handkerchiefs over their eyes. The odd player, 
the cat, has a tiny bell suspended by a ribbon 
from his neck. The blindfolded players, who 
impersonate mice, try to catch the cat — revers- 
ing the old way of playing the game— and when 
any player is caught, he removes the bandage 
from his eyes and takes the place of the cat. 

French Blind Man's Buff is a very jolly sort of 
game, and not well known in America. The 
players are seated in a circle of chairs, and are 
numbered from one up. The blind man stands 
in the center of the circle. He calls two numbers 
at random, and the players who have taken these 
numbers must change seats, the blind man try- 
ing to get a chair for himself as they move. 
The change of seats should be made as quietly 
as possible, and the players may elude the blind 
man in any way they like— by stooping, jump- 
ing, or crawling on the floor— but not leaving 
the circle. The game will soon become difficult 
for the blind man because he will not be able 
to locate the numbered players. As soon as he 



HOUSE PARTY GAMES 1 1 1 

succeeds in finding a chair, the player whose 
chair he has taken is the next blind man. 

A very pretty game for a party is played with 
a tissue paper balloon. The players stand in a 
circle, but quite a distance apart. Should they 
number more than twelve it will be better to 
have two or three circles playing at the same 
time. Each player is provided with a ping pong 
bat wound with ribbons, or two wands measur- 
ing each about two feet, and also wound with 
ribbons. An odd player who stands in the cen- 
ter holds the tissue balloon. At a signal, he 
tosses it toward the circle, the players trying to 
catch it with their bats or wands, and keep it in 
the air by tossing it from one player to another 
without leaving their places. Their effort is to 
keep the player in the center from getting the 
ball again. If he does succeed, he takes his 
place in the circle, and the player who accident- 
ally tossed the ball in his direction must stand 
in the middle and toss the ball. 

A new peanut game is known as Peanut 
Races. All the players line up across the room, 
each with a peanut on the floor in front of him. 
In addition to his peanut, each player is provided 
with one toothpick. At the word, Go, each 
player tries to drive his peanut across the room 



112 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

with the tooth pick, being careful to touch it 
with nothing else. The game is to see who will 
get his peanut across the room, touch the oppo- 
site wall, and shout "Goal," first. The peanut 
drivers have to get down on their knees so the 
game is a very funny, lively scramble. 

Guessing Animals is a new game that is 
splendid for getting all the wall flowers at a 
party acquainted with all the other wall flowers. 
Previous to the party as many animal cards as 
there are to be party guests are prepared by cut- 
ting animal pictures from the backs of maga- 
zines or old toy picture books and mounting 
them to rather large square cards. Each card 
has a ribbon attached that it may be hung around 
a child's neck, face in, as soon as the party 
guests arrive. The guests are provided with 
pads and pencils and are requested to guess the 
animals, putting down the names on a slip of 
paper opposite the name of the guest. Any 
questions which will lead to a discovery of the 
animal's identity may be asked, but the child 
who is questioned does not reply verbally. He 
imitates by voice, motion, and gesture the ani- 
mal whose name he bears, growling like a bear, 
jumping like a kangaroo, or howling like a tiger 
or lion. At the end of a certain time limit, the 



HOUSE PARTY GAMES 113 

lists are collected and the animal cards are 
turned over to disclose the player's identity. 
The longest, correct list wins a prize. 

Quiet games are almost as much fun as these 
noisy ones, and here are some other pencil and 
paper games that will keep a group of children 
or grown folks entertained a long time. 

The game of Questions is splendid for a house 
party. Each player is given two slips of paper, 
a pencil and a pad. On one slip he writes a 
question, an absurd one if possible, which makes 
the game funnier. On the other slip of paper 
he writes a noun that rhymes with the last word 
of the question. The questions are then col- 
lected and shuffled in one box, and the nouns in 
another, each player drawing in turn a question 
and an answer. The players must then write 
verses that answer the questions and contain 
the words drawn, no matter how foreign to the 
subject the word is. There is a five or ten-min- 
ute time limit and the results will be very ludic- 
rous in most instances. A possible question — 
"When is a girl an old maid?" and the noun 
drawn with it — l 'Hair " — resulted in the follow- 
ing verse : 

1 'A girl is a girl all the days she can wear 

A smile in her eyes and a bow in her hair." 



114 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Another rhyme that resulted from the ques- 
tion, "Why does a duck swim?" the noun 
"Coat" pleased some children immensely. The 
dignified college professor who was playing the 
game with them wrote this; 

' 'When asked why he swam, 
Said the duck, 'should I float 
I'd surely get wet, 
For I have no gum coat.' " 

Playing Cat is another pencil and paper game. 

A list of questions similar to the following is 
written on a large sheet of paper, headed by a 
big cat's head, and pinned to the wall where it 
can be easily seen by all the guests. Provided 
with pencil and paper they try to answer the 
questions: 

What cat lives in the pantry? Catsup. 

What cat lives in the water? Cataract. 

What cat sails a boat? Catamaran. 

What cat belongs to the army? Catapult. 

What cat goes to church? Catechism. 

And there are many more of these strange cats 
in the dictionary. 




PENNY GAMES 




r 



E Penny Hunt is a little folks' game 
that will delight a group of children 
who are having a birthday party 
on Saturday afternoon. A quan- 
tity of bright pennies are provided, as many 
as there are children playing the game, and 
they are hidden in nooks and corners of 
the nursery; under books, beneath the edges 
of the rugs, behind toys, and in any in- 
conspicuous places where they will not be too 
difficult to find. The children are seated and 
each one in turn tries to find a penny. If there 
is a piano in the room loud and soft music is 
played to direct the child's search; loud when he 
is near a penny, and soft in tone when he is far 



116 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

away. As soon as the child finds a penny, it 
is his to keep, and he seats himself again, giving 
some other child a chance to hunt, the last few 
players will have a more difficult time than the 
others to find their pennies, which will add to the 
interest of the game. If no piano is available, 
mother, or the big brother or sister who directs 
the games may call out "hot," and "cold" as 
the children are near or far away from the penny 
hiding places. 

Penny Races. As soon as each child has 
found a penny the bright coins may be 
utilized in another penny game. A long, 
low table, preferably a polished library table, 
is cleared of books and cover, ready for a 
series of most exciting penny races. At each 
end of the table stakes are laid out. These 
stakes may be arranged by means of two 
desk spindles standing at each end of the table 
and having rainbow colored baby ribbons 
stretched between and tied. Another method of 
arranging goals is to wind two meat skewers 
with ribbons and glue them to standards of card- 
board so that they will stand on the table like 
parlor croquet stakes. Then the races begin. 
Two children, each provided with a bright penny 
and a tooth pick, stand at the head of the table 



PENNY GAMES 117 

and try to bowl their coins, driving them with 
the tooth picks after the manner of a hoop to 
the opposite end of the table or goal. Should a 
penny roll off the table the player must start it 
over again. The penny that reaches the stake 
or goal and makes the return trip the length of 
the table to the starting point first, wins. The 
children race their pennies in turn until all have 
had a chance to play, and then begin over again. 
The child who is the most successful penny 
bowler is given a dainty bead or leather coin 
purse as a prize. 

Penny People will amuse a party of children 
who are tired of active games and feel like sitting 
still and being entertained in a new way. The 
only necessary materials for this game are soft 
pencils, sheets of white drawing paper, and a 
penny for each child. 

The game consists in laying a penny on a sheet 
of the drawing paper, drawing the coin out- 
line with a pencil, and then rilling in the outline 
until it is a solid black circle. A number of 
these penny circles are then combined to form 
silhouette figures of interest to children, and the 
fun of the game consists in seeing which child 
will make the most unique penny picture, using 
the fewest penny circles in its construction. 



118 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Penny brownies are very realistic and very easy 
to make. One circle forms the head, two more 
the body, two each the legs and two the arms. 
The addition of a pointed cap makes the brownies 
quite true to life. Most ferocious wild animals 
can be made b}' clever combinations of penny 
circles for the circles may overlap if necessary; 
and this new kind of penny fun will fill an hour 
with engrossing occupation. 

Penny Questions is a game that will prove 
a boon for older children or an evening of adult 
entertainment, even. Each player is given a 
bright penny of design previous to 1909, a pad 
of paper, and a pencil. On a large sheet of 
wrapping paper which is pinned to the wall at 
one end of the room in plain sight of the players 
are the following questions: 
Find on your penny 

Our first family (Indian). 

Indian corn — (Ear). 

A flower (Tulip). 

The boast of the free — (Liberty). 

A piece of armor — (Shield). 

A song — (America). 

A fruit — (Date). 

A mark of honor — (Wreath). 

A weapon — (Arrow). 



PENNY GAMES 1 1 9 

An odor — (S-cent). 

A barrier — (Bar). 

The peacock's pride — (Feather.) 

The condition of marriage — (United States). 

Part of a tree — (Leaf). 

The sign of our flag — (Stripes). 
The spaces for the answers to the questions 
are left blank, and the game is won by the player 
who is able to write down the most correct 
answers, checking his list by the list of answers 
which is read by the umpire of the game. The 
list of questions given is only suggestive. 
Twice as many objects to be described may be 
found on a cent. 

The Walking Penny will form part of an even- 
ing's magic fun, and will prove an amazing, and 
unexplainable trick to children although it is 
very easy of accomplishment. An older boy 
stands at one end of the room a little distance 
from his audience. To the lower button of 
his coat a black thread is tied. At the 
other end of the thread there is a pellet of 
wax that is stuck to another button of his 
coat. The thread and wax will not show at all 
if the boy's coat is black. Some one in the party 
audience is asked for a penny which the performer 
secretly attaches to the wax. He next drops 



120 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

the coin into a tumbler which he holds in his left 
hand. Shaking the tumbler, and at the same 
time extending his arm, he causes the penny to 
apparently crawl of its own volition higher and 
still higher in the glass until he is able to grasp 
it in the fingers of his right hand which are out- 
stretched for it. Quietly removing the wax so 
that no one sees the process, the boy magician 
restores the walking penny to its owner. In 
performing this trick it will be necessary to shake 
the glass continually to cover the method of 
procedure. 

The Vanishing Penny. After an evening or 
afternoon's entertainment which has had the 
penny as a piece de resistance it will be a lot 
of fun if the wonderful little cent may be 
made to disappear in some sort of magic 
way. The simplest trick for an amateur to 
perform and one which will always mystify 
children is this. A penny is placed in the 
extended left palm where it may be plainly seen. 
The open hand is then raised until almost level 
with the breast, above the eye level of the 
audience. The fingers of the right hand appar- 
ently pick up the cent but they really only touch 
it and leave it where it was originally, in the left 
palm. The right hand, closed, moves away, as 



PENNY GAMES 



121 



if it held the coin, and is shortly opened to be 
shown empty. In the meantime the penny has 
been slipped from the left palm into the front of 
the performer's waistcoat. It has completely 
vanished, and the penny games are over. 






CHRISTMAS HOME GAMES 

ANTA Claus Guessing Game is one 

which very little children will take 
delight in playing when the Christmas 
tree fun is over and they sit about the 
nursery fire waiting for bed time. One child is 
chosen to impersonate Santa Claus, and it will 
add to the fun if he is able to "dress up" like the 
good old Saint. A second child is blindfolded. 
Santa Claus leaves the room and returns with a 
bag of toys, or other small articles slung over his 
back. These gifts should be as nearly alike as 
possible in size, texture, and form, so that it 
will be difficult to discriminate between them. 
The child who is blindfolded holds up an empty 
stocking and into the toe of the stocking Santa 



124 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Claus drops one of the gifts from his bag. The 
blindfolded child is not allowed to put his hand 
in the stocking, but he must feel the outside, and 
try to guess what the object is by his sense of 
touch. This is a more difficult feat than one 
would imagine, especially if toy animals are 
used, or dolls of china, wax, rag or bisque and 
the child has to tell the kind of animal or the 
material of which the doll is made. If he guesses 
successfully, he may take his turn at playing 
Santa Claus. Each child should be given an 
opportunity to guess and if there is time enough 
to allow each one, two or three chances, a simple 
prize will delight the child who guessed success- 
fully the greatest number of times. Different 
fruits, or the nuts which remain from the Christ- 
mas dinner may be used for this game. Instead 
of being put in the blindfolded child's stocking, 
he holds his hands out and Santa Claus drops in 
them the almond, or the apple, or the orange, 
whose name he is to guess. 

The Christmas Bargain Counter is another 
fireside game for Christmas night that will 
amuse and at the same time instruct the nursery 
children. The bargain counter may be the 
nursery table set in front of the fire, or the 
hearth. On the counter are laid as many as one 



CHRISTMAS HOME GAMES 125 

likes of the toys which the children received from 
tree and Christmas stockings. One child is 
chosen to take charge of this play toy shop, and 
a second child leaves the room after looking 
carefully first at all the toys on the counter to 
determine their names. While this child is out 
of the room, a third child selects one of the toys 
and hides it. When the second child returns, he 
must try, at one guess, to say which toy the toy 
man sold during his absence. If he guesses 
successfully, he may be the next toy man. To 
make the game more difficult, two or more 
toys may be hidden. Another, and slightly 
more difficult way of playing the bargain counter 
game is to have the toy man change the positions 
of the toys while the child is out of the room. 
When the child comes back, he must re-arrange 
them, if he can, in exactly the same positions 
that they had when he left the room. The 
articles on the bargain counter may be scraps 
of color, instead of toys. Red, orange, yellow, 
green, blue, and violet ribbons, balls, or Christ- 
mas tree candles may be laid out in the order of 
the rainbow colors. While one child is either 
blindfolded or out of the room the child in charge 
of the colors removes one from sight, or alters 
the color order, and the other child must guess 



126 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

the hidden color, or restore the rainbow color 
order on his return. 

Reindeer will furnish a lot of fun for a nursery 
party in the firelight of Christmas Eve or Christ- 
mas night. One way of playing it is to choose 
a child to impersonate Blixen, Santa Claus' 
favorite reindeer. This child is given a string 
of tiny sleigh bells. A blind man is chosen and 
the other children playing the game form a large 
circle enclosing the blindfolded child and the 
"Reindeer." The game is played in similar 
fashion to the old game of Blind Man's Buff, 
save that the child who carries the sleigh bells 
goes softly up to the blindfolded child ringing 
them very gently and then running away. The 
child who is blindfolded must try and catch the 
"reindeer" by following the sound of the bells. 
Another form of Christmas Blind Man's Buff 
may suggest the approach of Kris Kringle on 
Christmas Eve. One child, chosen for the 
Saint, is blindfolded. A second child is chosen 
for starter. At the starter' s words, "Kris 
Kringle is coming!" the children, as noiselessly 
as possible, take varied positions in the room. 
Some stand up on chairs, others crouch by the 
side of the fire, and a few stand in the center 
of the room or in the corners. The blindfolded 



CHRISTMAS HOME GAMES 127 

child must move without guide until he reaches 
a child and tags him. The children may change 
positions, but with as little confusion as possible, 
for the slightest sound will give the blindfolded 
child a clue as to the direction he is to take. 
The starter must keep the blindfolded child 
from hurting himself or going too near the fire. 
Pencil and Pad Games will form a pleasant 
pastime as the children sit in front of the Christ- 
mas fire. The children are all provided with 
freshly sharpened pencils and fresh paper pads. 
A basket of evergreen sprays or any variety of 
Christmas greens is used for the first writing 
game. There may be sprigs of holly and mistle- 
toe, ivy, fir, spruce, hemlock, the many kinds of 
pine, including ground pine, and arbor vitae, 
all of which are to be found somewhere and some- 
how at Christmas time. Each child selects one 
spray of green from the basket, writes down the 
name as he guesses it, and passes it to his neigh- 
bor by the fire. This is continued until the 
supply of greens is exhausted and the basket is 
empty. The children during the game, should 
not ask each other the names of the greens. 
At the end, the slips are collected and mother 
decides which child has won the prize by hand- 
ing in the nearest correct list of tree and shrub 



128 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

names. Another Pencil and Pad game is that 
of the Christmas cakes. A number of sheets of 
paper are prepared before the game begins, with 
the following question written on. The italics 
indicate the answers which are left blank on the 
papers and are filled in by the children. 

What kind of Christmas Cake would be made 
by a— 

Farmer — Hoe cake. 

A Diver — Sponge Cake. 

A little, curly-haired girl — Ribbon Cake. 

A Huckster — Fruit Cake. 

Little Jack Horner — Plum Cake. 

A Miner — Gold Cake. 

A Drummer — Pound Cake. 

The Man in the Moon — Cheese Cake. 

Old Mother Hubbard — Poverty Cake. 

There are many other Christmas cakes which 
may be added and the paper with the longest 
list of correct answers wins a prize. The game 
may be varied by using the names of candy 
instead of cake, as follows: 

What kind of Christmas candy would be 
bought by a — 

Schoolmaster — Stick Candy. 

Shoemaker — Shoe Strings (licorice.) 

Baby — Kisses. 



CHRISTMAS HOME GAMES 129 

Dentist — Gum Drops. 

Flatterer— Taffy. 

Milkman — Cream Candy. 

Miller — Barley Sugar. 

Dairy Maid — Butter Scotch. 

Toy Fishing is an English game and will 
furnish a lot of fun for the children's party on 
Christmas night. Some inexpensive toys, which 
may be jokes if one wishes, half the number 
suited to the boys and half to the girls are 
wrapped in brown tissue paper and buried in 
two big pans or tubs of bran. The toys used 
for this game should be very small and com- 
pletely covered by the bran. The tubs are 
placed on low stands, and the floor beneath 
should be covered with a dust cloth for the 
bran is apt to spill and spot the carpet. Each 
guest is allowed to fish for a toy, with one hand 
and for just one minute. The very last fisher- 
man will have to work pretty hard to find a fish 
in the required time. 





CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES 




AMES for a child's Christmas party 
should be just the j oiliest and most 
rollicking sort one can possibly find. 
One that will make everybody laugh 
in spite of themselves is the Game of the Christ- 
mas Candle. To play this game after the 
fashion of the little English children of Queen 
Elizabeth's time, quite a long, fat wax candle 
should be provided trimmed with bright scarlet 
streamers which hang below the candle, and 
wound with ground pine half its length. One 
child is chosen to hold the lighted candle, and 
another who must try to blow it out. The 
" blower" is placed a few feet away from the 
candle which is held at the height of his head, 



132 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

and facing it. He is then blindfolded, turned 
around three times, and told to take as many 
steps as he was required to before, and in the 
direction he thinks the candle to be. Then he 
blows, trying to put out the candle's flame. 
Perhaps the child walked straight away from the 
candle. Anyway, his attempts will be very 
funny indeed as he puffs out his cheeks and 
blows in the wrong direction, and they will 
cause much merriment among the other children. 
Another way of playing this candle game is to 
use one of the tiny unburnable Christmas trees 
which are to be found in the favor shops. Very 
small colored candles are fastened to and lighted 
on this tree, and one child holds it while a second 
blindfolded child tries to see how many candle 
flames he can blow out at one attempt. A row 
of the ordinary Christmas tree candles may be 
fastened with pins to a holly wreath so that they 
stand upright as the wreath is held flat above a 
child's head. As in the case of the tiny Christ- 
mas tree, the blindfolded child tries to blow out 
the flames of as many candles as possible. A 
prize for the most successful blower will add to 
the fun of these candle games. 

Another "blind" game that will delight chil- 
dren and grown folks, too, at a Christmas party, 



CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES 133 

is that of the Christmas Bag. A paper bag is 
used for the game, rather a large one, but one that 
is made of light-weight paper so that it will break 
easily. The game is to form one of the main fea- 
tures of the party, as it may very easily. It will be 
best to make the bag, specially, of bright red tis- 
sue paper, doubled and fastened with glue at the 
sides. Red crepe paper may be used, too, and 
the edges of the bag sewed with red thread. 
When this gay Christmas bag is finished, it is 
filled with bon bons wrapped in fringed tissue 
paper or French snappers which hold caps and 
mottoes, or even some carefully wrapped toys; 
and it is suspended from the chandelier by red 
or green ribbons which are run in the top. A 
wand, which may be an end of a broom stick, 
wound with ribbons, and having ribbon 
streamers, is provided and given to one of the 
children. As in the candle game, he is allowed 
to stand three or four paces from the bag. He 
is then blindfolded, turned around a few times, 
and told to walk back to the bag and hit it with 
the wand. He may have one, two, three, or 
four shots at the bag — as the children decide 
at the beginning of the game. If he misses, 
another child is given the wand, is blindfolded, 
and allowed to have a chance. Then some 



134 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

child is successful and hits the bag, breaking it, 
the contents scatter delightfully on the floor, 
and there is a wild, jolly scramble to see who will 
be able to pick up the most sweets, or toys, as 
the case may be. This game forms a pleasant 
ending to a child's party, and a unique way of 
distributing the party favors. 

Toy Tag may be played at a child's party. 
The room which is the largest one in the house 
is cleared of furniture and the guests divide 
themselves into four groups, standing in the four 
corners of the room, with one child in the center 
who is It Each group has a leader who assigns 
to each child in his group, the name of some 
fascinating Christmas toy — one corner may 
contain an airship, a doll, a train of cars, and a 
lion; another, a go-cart, a billikin, a drum and a 
Teddy Bear, and so on — but in whispers that 
the child who is It may not know where to locate 
any special toy. Suddenly the child who is It 
calls at random the name of some pretty toy, 
being pretty sure to hit upon the name of 
one of the children. As he speaks the child 
who bears the name of the toy must run 
across the room and find another corner, 
Puss -in -the -Corner fashion. There will be 
duplicate toys very likely in the different 



CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES 135 

corners, which will necessitate several children 
running at the same time. The child who 
is It must tag some one of the children as they 
cross the room, which is a more difficult feat 
than one would suppose, because he doesn't 
know who the toys are, or from which corner 
they will run. A child may escape tagging by 
imitating the toy which he is supposed to be. 
A Billikin in danger of being caught, may sit 
suddenly down on the floor, hugging his knees 
up to his chin and smiling broadly. A lion may 
roar, and a doll may grow stiff and walk with 
short, wooden steps. The efforts of the toys to 
escape tagging will furnish a lot of fun. The 
child who is tagged takes the place of the child 
in the center. 

Christmas Snow Balls is played a little after 
the manner of the old, and favorite, Potato 
Races. The snow balls are little toys, or jokes, 
or favors as one wishes, wound in strips of cotton 
batting quite carefully that the ball may be 
perfectly round, and then wrapped last of all 
in white tissue paper, glued on. On the outside 
of the snow ball there is a thin coating of muci- 
lage with frost powder sifted on, which makes 
the ball look as if it were really made of snow. 
There should be as many snow balls as there are 



136 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

guests at the party. Two baskets — just ordi- 
nary market baskets will do if the handles are 
wound with ribbon and tied with a big red bow 
at the top — are provided to hold the snow balls, 
and are placed in two chairs at one end of the 
room. The snow balls are then dropped on the 
carpet in a long line stretching from the baskets 
to the end of the room — an equal number in 
each line, and equidistant from each other. 
A child stands by each chair, and at a given 
signal they run for the farthest snow balls, 
bringing them back and dropping them in the 
baskets. All the snow balls are collected in this 
way and the child who first fills his basket wins 
the game. No snow ball must be broken. If 
one is, it counts as a foul in the game. The 

children may be divided for this game into two 
teams and the side which has the most success- 
ful players after all have had a chance to play 
counts as the winning team. At the end of the 
game the snow balls are distributed and the 
children open them, discovering the treasures 
wrapped up inside. 

The Christmas Ship is the very funniest game 
of all. The children sit in a circle to play it. 
One child who starts the game says to his neigh- 
bor: 

' 'My Christmas ship has come in." 



CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES 137 



i r 



'What did it bring you?" asks the next child. 

"A Jumping Jack/' says the first child, per- 
haps, beginning at once to imitate the hopping 
motions of a toy Jumping Jack. 

The child to whom he spoke must also play 
at being a Jumping Jack, saying at the same time 
to his neighbor: 

"My Christmas Ship has come in," 
"What did it bring you?" repeats his neigh- 
bor. 

"A lion," says the Jumping Jack, trying to 
continue his hopping and to roar at the same 
time. The third child must roar, too, as he 
gives the child next him the ship information 
and shows him what toy he must imitate. By 
the time a few human jumping jacks are in 
motion, some lions roaring, two or three trains 
are steaming around the room, and some little 
girl dolls are trying to say mama and papa, the 
game will end in just one grand frolic. 





HALLOWE'EN GAMES 




[URN the lights low; pile more logs on 
the open fire, and then play some of 
these games on Hallowe'en. They 
will make one quite sure that there 
are fairies, and gnomes, and elves, and all the 
rest of the delightful little folk that live, usually, 
only between the covers of the picture books. 

A Brownie Game. From a book that has 
pictures of brownies, trace ever so many of the 
quaint little men on brown paper and then cut 
them out, neatly, marking their round eyes, 
noses, smiling mouths, and buttons with a 
carpenter's pencil. Set down a number on the 
back of each brownie, ten for the Policeman, five 
each for the Chinaman and the Dandy, one for 



140 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

just a plain brownie, and so on until each little 
man has a number. Then hide the brownies 
in out-of-the-way corners of the room, behind 
the curtains, inside books, peeping out from the 
backs of pictures and beneath the rugs. The 
children who are going to play the game must 
stay out of the room while the brownies are 
being hidden, but, at a given signal, they return 
and begin a merry hunt for the brownies to see 
who can find the greatest number in fifteen 
minutes. After the brownies have been col- 
lected, each child counts up the numbers on the 
back of his brownies to see who has the highest 
score. This child wins the game. A ginger- 
bread man will prove a nice prize for the winner. 
The Game of Tinker Bell. She was the 
strange little fairy, you know, in the story of 
Peter Pan, whom one never saw, but only heard, 
because her voice was a tiny, tinkling bell. 
To play this fairy game, all the children, except 
two, join hands and make a ring in the center 
of the room. If it is a party, it will be much 
more fun to have these two children dressed in 
costume, one with wings upon her shoulders like 
a fairy and the other in a Peter Pan cap. Peter 
and the fairy stand in the center of the circle, 
the fairy wearing a tiny bell hung from her 



HALLOWE'EN GAMES 141 

wrist by a ribbon, and which she rings from time 
to time. Peter's eyes are blindfolded, and he 
tries to catch the fairy by following the sound of 
the bell. As he almost reaches Tinker Bell, she 
moves softly away, and the children move also, 
but very softly too, on their tiptoes. If Peter 
does succeed in catching the fairy he gives his 
cap to some other child to wear, who is, in his 
turn, blindfolded and tries to catch Tinker Bell. 

The Fairy Gifts. Every one knows that 
Hallowe'en is the night when the fairies give 
good gifts to little children. One may choose 
one's own gifts when playing this game. 

Draw or paint a big yellow crescent moon on 
a white sheet and all about it draw many little 
yellow stars. Upon the moon, and in the center 
of each star, paste little white papers, with the 
name of a good gift written plainly on it. These 
gifts may be anything that a child would like 
very much; a set of dolls' dishes, a drum, a party, 
happiness, a new book, a sunshiny day, all 
these and many more gifts are written down. 
Each child is blindfolded, turned about two or 
three times, and then told to walk up to the 
sheet and pick out a gift. Perhaps he will not 
be able to touch any gift at all. Perhaps a 
boy will select a doll for his gift and a girl a 



142 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

drum — that is the fun of the game, but before 
the time is up some delightful gifts will have 
been touched which the children can write down 
on slips of paper and count up, afterward, to see 
who is to be the happiest and the richest during 
the year. 

Secrets. This is a mystery game that will 
furnish ever so much fun as the children sit 
around the open fire on Hallowe'en. One child 
leaves the room while the others decide upon 
some object or character connected with the eve. 
Then the child returns and says to each of the 
others in turn: 

"What is your secret like?" 

Perhaps a Jack-o-Lantem was chosen, and 
the answers are: 

"It is round." 

"It has large eyes." 

"It grows in the garden." 

"It is orange," and then the child is able to 

guess what it is. 

If an elf was decided upon, the answers may 
be like these: 

"It is tiny." 

"It lives in story books." 

"It is fond of playing tricks." 

"It wears pointed shoes," and after awhile 
the child finds out. 



HALLOWEEN GAMES 143 

The Witch. To play this game, one child is 
chosen to play the part of the witch and she 
may wear a red cloak, a pointed cardboard hat, 
and have a toy black cat sitting upon her shoul- 
der. In one hand she carries a little broom and 
she is blindfolded. The other children form a 
circle around the witch and dance about her, 
chanting : 

"Oh Hallowe'en, 
We all believe, 

A witch rides over the trees, 
On a broomstick steed, 
She's a sight indeed, 
And she catches each child 
she sees." 

At the end of the jingle, the children stand still 
and the witch points her broom at one child, who 
must catch hold of it. 
"Who are you?" asks the witch. 

In reply the child who holds the broom dis- 
guises his voice and crows like a rooster, gobbles 
like a turkey, peeps like a chick, or makes any other 
animal or bird sound. If the witch is able to 
recognize the child's voice and tell his name 
the child has to pay some funny forfeit. 




WIND GAMES AND HOW TO PLAY THEM 




HE wind is a splendid playfellow; not 
the blustering, tiresome old chap one 
thinks he is, only good for spoiling 
games and tossing about caps and 
getting in the way generally. Don't misjudge 
the wind in this way. He really is a very pleas- 
ant sort of game comrade if he does play rather 
gustily. Just start one or two of these fine 
wind games and see how jolly they are. 

Weather Man will test one's wits because one 
will have to pay a forfeit for forgetting, which 
are the points of the compass. Choose one 
child who is to play the part of weather man. 
All the other children stand in lines facing the 



146 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

weather man and listen very carefully to the 
directions which he gives. If he says: 

"The Wind blows east," all the children play- 
ing the game must whirl around toward the east. 
If he says: 

"The Wind blows west," all the children turn 
toward the west. If he is a very clever weather 
man he will call out his directions very quickly 
so as to confuse the players and he will make the 
game more difficult by occasionally calling: 

"Northwest!" 

"Southwest!" 

"Northeast!" 

"Southeast!" 
WTien the weather man calls out: 

"Whirl wind!" or 

"Cyclone!" 
all the players must turn around three times. 
It is very amusing to play this game in a large 
field or in a broad street where the children are 
scattered and it is not easy for them to watch 
each other. If any child makes a mistake and 
turns in the wrong direction or doesn't whirl 
about when the weather man says "cyclone" 
he must say the alphabet backwards, or play 
some other as funny forfeit. 

The Stream is a splendid running and jump- 



WIND GAMES 147 

ing game for out of doors fun. The banks of the 
stream are marked out by chalk lines on the side- 
walk or by means of rows of pebbles in the road. 
Pebbles are really the better boundary lines for 
they may be moved to increase the width of the 
stream. The players, all except one, who is the 
starter, stand in a long line a distance of a few 
rods away from one of the boundary lines which 
mark the banks of the stream. They are to 
play the part of a fleet of sailing ships, blown 
by the wind across the stream and the game is to 
see how many children are able to jump from one 
boundary line to the other on the starter's signal. 
If a child lands within the limits of theboundary, 
he must drop out of the game. As the game goes 
on, the boundary lines of the stream are widened 
and the children try to accomplish the wider 
jump. The child who is able to jump across the 
stream the greatest number of times without 
landing within its imaginary waters, wins the 
game. 

Wind Races are also ever so jolly for an after- 
noon of spring fun. The players are divided 
into four groups, stationed in the four corners of 
a field, yard or garden. Each corner is known 
by its relation to the points of the compass; 
north, west, south and east. One odd player 



148 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

stands in the center of the playground and acts 
as It. The north, west, south and east players 
cross the field all the time, changing places with 
each other and as they cross the odd player in 
the center tries to tag them. As soon as a 
player is tagged he must go back to his original 
corner and discontinue running. The last player 
who crosses the playground without being tagged 
wins the game. 

The Wind in the Garden is a game that a 
group of little girls will love to play. The 
children playing this game divide themselves 
into two equal groups — one group representing a 
garden full of flowers and the other group play- 
ing the part of the wind. The two groups stand, 
facing each other, on opposite sides of the play 
ground and there are home lines for each group 
outlined with pebbles or tiny twigs rather a wide 
distance apart. The children who occupy the 
garden side of the playground decide among 
themselves which spring flowers, dandelions, 
violets, cowslips, daffodils, tulips, or any pre- 
ferred blossom they will represent. As soon as 
they have decided this, in whispers of course, 
that the wind may not hear them, they advance 
toward the home line of the opposite group of 
players. These children try to guess what 



WIND GAMES 149 

flowers they represent and as soon as they guess 
correctly, the wind children give chase to the 
flowers, trying to tag as many as possible. The 
children who are caught must return home with 
the wind children who take the part of flowers 
in the next race — the flowers playing vrind. 
After a certain number of races, the number to 
be decided before the game begins, that group 
which has succeeded in keeping the greatest 
number of players, both its own and those which 
it has captured from the opposite side, wins the 
game. 

The Wind and the Cuckoo's Nest is the best 
sort of an out-of-door game for boys. There 
is one player selected by the others for leader 
while another player bends down as one does in 
playing leap frog, his head against the leader. 
This is the cuckoo. The other players stand in 
a circle about this cuckoo, their fingers on his 
back. Then the leader "counts out" these 
players, touching each finger as he repeats: 

' The wind blows east, the wind blows west, 
The wind blows under the cuckoo's nest. 
Where shall this, or this one go? 
Shall he go east or shall he go west? 
Or shall he go under the Cuckoo's nest?" 



150 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The child whose finger is touched as the leader 
speaks the last word in the rhyme must go any- 
where that the cuckoo tells him to. The cuckoo 
suddenly stands erect and directs this player to 
climb a tree, scale a wall, crawl under a fence, 
hop so many steps on one foot or do something 
equally as difficult and funny. All the other 
players follow in the trail of this child to see that 
he follows out exactly the instructions which 
the cuckoo gave him. As soon as he has accom- 
plished his feat the leader calls : 

"Come, come under the cuckoo's nest!" 

This is the signal for all the players to run 
home in an attempt to see which of them all will 
reach the cuckoo first. The last child in is 
cuckoo for the next game. 

The Wind's Travels will sharpen one's wits. 
All the little folks but one playing this game stand 
in a row. The odd player stands at a distance 
from and facing them, holding a bean bag. He 
tosses the bean bag to any child whom he 
chooses, naming as he throws it one point of the 
compass; north, south, east or west, and the 
child to whom he throws must repeat quickly 
a northern, southern, eastern or western city, 
country, or province. If he fails to think of one 
before catching the bean bag, he must drop out 



WIND GAMES 



151 



of the line. The game may be varied by having 
the children name food products, birds, or ani- 
mals that are peculiar to the northern, southern, 
eastern and western sections of the world and 
this makes more fun perhaps than to ask for 
names of places. And the children may stand 
in a circle about the child who throws the bean 
bag if they wish, but the circle should be quite 
a wide one. The player who is able to stay in 
the throwing line longest wins the game. 






A NEW YEAR'S PARTY 

ATCHING for the New Year may be 
an excuse for a most delightful home 
party. A series of New Year games, 
easily arranged and full of charming 
surprises will make the long evening from eight 
to twelve all too short for a group of little folks. 
The invitations to the party are written in 
red ink on white cards which have tiny calendars 
tied with bows of scarlet ribbon in an upper cor- 
ner. As soon as the small guests assemble this 
program of games is carried out. 

The Game of Good Resolves. Seated at a 
table the children are given sheets of paper and 
pencils, and each child is asked to write on his 
paper his pet resolution for the coming year. 



154 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

These resolves for the turning over of new leaves 
may be sober or funny, unique or common- 
place, but each one is almost sure to be typical 
of the child who wrote it. At the end of ten 
minutes the papers which have been numbered 
and signed by the children are collected and read 
by the grown-up who is conducting the game. 
On a second sheet of paper each child writes 
down the number of the resolution and beside it 
the name of the child whom he surmises wrote it. 
The child who guesses the greatest number of 
names correctly is given as a prize one of the 
lovely child calendars to be found in the art 
stores now. 

Hunting Horns will give the children who have 
been sitting still during the previous game a 
chance to stretch their tired legs and romp a bit. 
As many penny tin horns as there are children 
at the party have been provided, and hidden in 
nooks all over the house. To each horn the end 
of a ball of red twine is tied and the cord is 
wound in and out of rooms, stairways, under 
tables, chairs, about the pillars in the hall, and 
in every conceivable place in the house, cobweb 
fashion, until it ends in the living room. Each 
child is given one of these balls of cord with 
instructions to wind it and follow its cobweb 



A NEW YEAR'S PARTY 155 

lengths until he finds the horn at the end. As 
soon as a horn is reached, the child blows a loud 
blast and returns to the living room. The horns 
are provided with ribbon streamers by means of 
which the children hang them about their necks 
ready to blow in unison when the witching hour 
of twelve arrives. 

The Once Upon a Time Diary is the next 
New Year's game on the party program. Rather 
long strips of paper have been prepared at the 
top of which is written: 

' 'Once upon a time there was a little boy who 
kept a diary and this is what he wrote in it." 

The children are each given a paper. At a 
signal they fold over the upper edge of the paper 
and write the word Monday, following it with a 
sentence telling what the little boy did and wrote 
down in his diary the first day of the week. As 
soon as this is accomplished, the papers are again 
folded, concealing Monday's diary; they are 
exchanged, and the children write Tuesday's 
diary. This method of diary writing is con- 
tinued until each day of the week has been 
accounted for, when the papers are collected, 
unfolded, read, and the little folks go into gales 
of merriment over the funny results. A group 
of children who play the Diary game may pro- 



156 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

duce as humorous a make-believe diary as the 
following: 

Once upon a time there was a little boy who 
kept a diary, and this is what he wrote in it: 
' 'Monday, I fell downstairs and broke my leg. 
"Tuesday, I got a position in the circus riding 

bareback. 
" Wednesday, I earned ten cents picking up 

apples for grandfather. 
"Thursday, I went to Africa to shoot lions. 
"Friday, I got kept in at school because I was 

late. 
"Saturday, I caught the measles. 
"Sunday, I got a penny from mother for keep- 
ing awake through the sermon in church." 
The Months of the Year is an active ball game 
for the New Year's party. The children play- 
ing the game stand in a large circle, each taking 
the name of one of the months. Eleanor is 
April; Dudley, October; Elizabeth, June; and so 
on until each child is named. One child who 
holds a big rubber ball stands in the center of 
the circle. Quickly calling the name of a month, 
she bounces the ball at random in the direction 
of the children. The child whose name was 
called must run forward and catch the ball. 
If the child fails he is obliged to leave the 



A NEW YEAR'S PARTY 157 

game, which is won by the child who stays 
in the circle longest. Should there be more 
than twelve children playing the game, the 
others may take as names the days of the week : 
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs- 
day, Friday, and Saturday. 

Making the Year's Gifts will delight the party 
youngsters for another half hour and will also 
help them to realize the treasures which the 
New Year is going to bring them. In the center 
of a long table a quantity of materials for quick 
construction work are placed: colored pencils, 
sheets of drawing paper, scissors, colored tissue 
paper, paste, old illustrated magazines, and bits 
of ribbon and lace. A month of the year is 
assigned to each child, and within a prescribed 
time limit, the children make objects typical 
of the month which they are to illustrate. This 
game calls for quick wits and much ingenuity on 
the part of the children, and the results of their 
efforts may be realistic, funny and clever. The 
child to whom the month of January was assigned 
may cut out a number of snow crystals from 
white paper, and mount them on a darker bit of 
cardboard. A baby picture cut from a maga- 
zine and mounted will also illustrate the little 
New Year. February's child makes a lace 



158 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

valentine, or draws an American flag, or cuts out 
a toy soldier from paper, coloring his uniform 
with a red or blue pencil. March is illustrated 
by a tiny paper kite cut from colored paper, 
or a folded paper windmill. April's child folds 
a doll's umbrella. May is illustrated by a 
picture of crocuses or violets drawn with the 
colored pencils. June's child makes a red tissue 
paper rose. July suggests a patriotic illustra- 
tion, and perhaps an inventive child will be 
able to make a bunch of play fire crackers by 
rolling squares of red paper around a pencil, 
pasting them in place and adding a fuse made of 
white tissue paper. Every other month has 
illustrating possibilities. Fruits and vegetables 
may be cut in silhouette and mounted on a 
white card for October. December suggests a 
dozen different pictures: stockings, a red chim- 
ney, or a toy drum made of a scrap of red card 
board. The most successful object made by 
a child to represent one of the year's gifts should 
win a simple prize. 

Tableaux of the months can be easily arranged, 
and will fill the end of the evening up to twelve 
o'clock. 

One end of the living room should have a dark 
curtain hung against the wall for a background, 



A NEW YEAR'S PARTY 159 

and some portieres are arranged for a temporary 
curtain in front so that they will pull open and 
shut by means of a cord. This forms a minia- 
ture stage for the child Months who appear, one 
at a time, as the curtains are drawn back by a 
boy dressed in a flowing gray robe and white 
cotton beard to represent Father Time. 

January is a little girl wearing a white dress 
to the edge of which cotton batting is sewed to 
represent snow. On her head she wears a 
wreath of pine, and she carries in her arms a huge 
snow ball made of crepe paper stuffed with cotton 
and having frost powder spread over the out- 
side. As the curtains are drawn, disclosing 
January, she tosses her snow ball into the audi- 
ence of guests and it bursts, covering the chil- 
dren with a shower of bonbons. 

February is a small boy in a soldier suit, who 
tosses tiny flags to the children. 

March is a tall, slight child wearing a long, 
gray gown and a gray scarf about her neck. 
To the hem of her gown is sewed a border of 
paper crocuses, white and yellow and purple. 

April's tableau is a very little boy and girl, 
the boy in rain coat and boots, and the little girl 
in a low necked gown of yellow. The children 
hold an umbrella over their heads and kiss each 
other under its shelter. 



160 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

May wears a flowered muslin gown and a 
flower wreath and carries a basket of paper 
flowers on her arm which she throws to the 
children. 

June is covered with festoons of pink paper 
roses, some of which trim her big picture hat. 

July is dressed in white with red, white, and 
blue ribbons. She carries an armful of fire 
cracker candy boxes which she scatters among 
the audience. 

August is a boy in an outing suit with a 
bundle of out of door playthings, bats, balls, 
an oar, a butterfly net, and a tennis racquet. 

September is a little girl in a gingham apron 
and sunbonnet carrying a lunch box and a bundle 
of books under her arm. 

October's long red robe is covered with paper 
autumn leaves pinned on in lavish splendor. 

November is a boy dressed to represent a 
Jack-O-Lantern. He wears an orange cambric 
suit and a mask covered with orange crepe paper 
upon which eyes, nose, and mouth are outlined 
in black crayon and covers his face. His favors 
are cardboard models of fruits and vegetables 
filled with sweets which he tosses to the audi- 
ence. 

December dressed to represent Santa Claus, 



A NEW YEAR'S PARTY 



161 



and carrying a tiny fir tree appears last and 
disappears just as the clock strikes twelve. 
A very tiny child in white is then seen typifying 
the New Year, and the tableaux and party end 
in a burst of noise from the children's toy horns 
blown with all the energy the children possess 
to welcome the real New Year. 





J 



STORY PARTIES 

HEY are simple home parties for 
children, easily planned and having 
wonderful charm for the little folks, 
because each has for its key note one 
of the favorite fairy tales of childhood. 

When Little Black Sambo Went to a Party. 
Every child has heard and loved the story of 
little Black Sambo whose father's name was 
Black Jumbo and his mother's, Black Mumbo. 
His mother made him a beautiful red coat and a 
pair of beautiful little blue trousers and his 
father bought him a beautiful green umbrella 
and a pair of purple shoes with crimson soles 
and crimson linings. Then little Black Sambo 
went out to the jungle where he had wonderful 



164 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

adventures with tigers, and afterwards he ate 
many, many pancakes baked for him by Black 
Mumbo. 

The party may be held in the garden where 
the trees and shrubs simulate the jungle of the 
story. It will be very jolly indeed if the small 
party host be dressed, as was little Black Sambo 
in a red coat, blue breeches, purple shoes and 
with a black cambric mask to cover his face and 
make him look like a little African boy. 

As soon as the guests arrive, mother, or some 
grown person tells them the story of little 
Black Sambo. At the end of the story some 
jungle games are started. 

A Tiger Chase is played like Puss in the Cor- 
ner. The children group themselves in the 
four corners of the garden with little Black 
Sambo in the center of the lawn. They try to 
change corners without being tagged by Sambo, 
and they growl all the time, which adds to the 
fun of the game. Any tiger who is tagged 
takes the place of little Black Sambo and tries 
to catch other tigers. 

A second Tiger Game will amuse the children. 

A large ring is formed, with one child in the 
center who asks of any child whom he chooses 
in the circle: 



STORY PARTIES 165 

1 'Have you seen my tiger?" 

"Yes," replies the child. 

"How did it look?" asks the first child, at 
which the second child describes, without looking 
at him some child in the ring, saying: 

1 'He has on a blue sailor suit," or 

1 'She wears a red hair ribbon," or 

1 'He has on a green necktie." 

The tiger described then runs about the gar- 
den, in and out among the trees and shrubbery, 
chased by the child in the center, and is not safe 
until it finds its own place again in the circle. 
If a tiger is caught, it must stand in the middle 
of the ring and do the questioning and chasing. 

The Table Decorations for little Black Sambo's 
party may also illustrate the story. 

In the center of the table a wide shallow tray 
holds sand in which are stuck many trees to 
imitate a miniature jungle. These trees are 
made of strips of green tissue paper, fringed, and 
wound about wooden meat skewers to which 

they are glued. The pointed end of the skewer 
is inserted in the sand. A black china doll, 
dressed like little Black Sambo, stands in the 
jungle and tigers cut from stiff, white paper 
and painted yellow with black stripes stand 
behind the trees. Tiny gifts for the guests 
may be little black dolls for the girls and animal 



166 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

watch charms for the boys, wrapped in green 
tissue paper, tied with long yellow ribbons and 
are hidden behind the trees. A strip of green 
crepe paper is folded about the edge of the tray 
and the ribbon streamers end at the children's 
places. 

There are candy boxes made like fat griddle 
cakes at each place. The foundation of each 
box is an empty ribbon bolt. The top is cut off 
all the way round save half an inch, which 
serves for a hinge. The box is then covered 
with brown paper and a griddle cake top is cut 
in a circle, half an inch larger in diameter than 
the box, is tinted with brown water colors to 
look like a real pancake, and is glued to the 
cover. These unique little boxes hold licorice 
babies. 

Place favors for the boys are tiny toy tigers 
on wheels, and for the girls little green umbrellas 
for dolls. 

The refreshments are simple; light sandwiches, 
cocoa, cakes and ice cream, but they may end 
with hot waffles and maple syrup, which will 
delight the children. 

A Cinderella Party gives a delightful scheme 
of entertainment for an early dancing party for 
children. The room is hung with festoons of 



STORY PARTIES 167 

paper smilax and roses, and at one end two 
chairs draped with plush rugs and with gilt 
paper crowns and sceptres fastened to the back 
of each, make play thrones for the Prince and 
Princess of the fairy story. 

Simple games begin the evening's entertain- 
ment, the first being a new form of Hunt the 
Slipper. The children sit in a circle on the floor 
with their knees gathered up. The little host, 
who is dressed to represent the Prince, stands in 
the center of the circle and gives one of the 
children a tiny pink silk slipper. He is blind- 
folded while the children count ten. When he 
opens his eyes, the slipper is being passed 
rapidly around the circle under the children's 
knees. Each child tries to keep the child in the 
center from seeing it, but when it is discovered in 
the possession of some player, he must change 
places with the child in the center. 

The Cobbler Game will also please the little 
guests. The cobbler seats himself in the middle 
of the room on a hassock, and all the other 
children join hands and dance around him, 
gradually creeping nearer and nearer to him. 
Suddenly he cries: 

"Now, let me take your shoes," and he tries, 
without leaving his seat, to touch some child's 



168 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

feet. If he is successful, the child tagged must 
change places with the cobbler. The aim of 
the little players is to avoid being caught. 

A grand march follows these games, after 
which a few simple cotillion figures may be 
danced, including a Virginia Reel and the 
familiar Clock figure. The cotillion favors are 
toy mice, dolls' slippers, and pumpkin candy 
boxes filled with sweets. 

In one corner of the room an older child 
represents the fairy godmother, dressed in a tall 
black hat and long red flannel cape. She sits 
in a tent made of clothes poles draped with rugs, 
and she dispenses motto candies from a big 
black kettle which stands at her side. 

The Supper Table Decorations follow out the 
scheme of the fairy tale. In the center of the 
table there is a pumpkin coach made of crepe 
paper stretched over a circular wire foundation. 
The coach wheels are taken from a child's toy 
cart, and are wound with orange ribbons. Toy 
mice draw the coach, and a doll dressed like 
Cinderella, stands at the coach door. The 
inside of the big pumpkin is full of toys for the 
guests. Chocolate mice stand at one side of 
each plate, and on the opposite side are packages 
of bonbons wrapped up and tied in ball shape 



STORY PARTIES 169 

in orange crepe paper with green ribbon bows. 

A Red Riding Hood Party. This is a very 
simple afternoon party for children, but one 
which will please them hugely. 

As soon as the small guests arrive the little 
girl hostess, dressed in a Red Riding Hood cape 
and hood, tells them the delightful old fairy 
story. 

Stretched at one end of the room there is a big 
sheet of black muslin upon which a forest scene 
is sketched with green chalk, and a hut with 
brown or red. A large paper doll, dressed to 
represent Red Riding Hood in scarlet crepe 
paper, is given to each guest in turn, who, with 
blinded eyes, walks up to the cambric sheet 
and tries to pin the doll to the door of the house 
in the woods. The most successful little girl 
receives a real Red Riding Hood dollie as a 
prize. 

A rather tall child, dressed as Red Riding 
Hood's grandmother in a ruffled cap, long 
white apron and spectacles, leads the children 
in some merry games. 

She starts a Clothespin Game, laying two rows 
of clothespins down on the floor on opposite 
sides of the room, and with an equal number in 
each row. A child stands at the head of each 



J 70 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

row and the grandmother between the rows 
with her apron held out to receive the pins. 
Running to the ends of the lines and returning 
with only one pin at a time the children drop 
them in grandmother's apron. The child who 
succeeds first in picking up all the clothespins 
wins the race. 

The Grandmother inaugurates a Wolf Game 
also. She blindfolds one child and asks the 
other guests, one at a time, to come up behind 
this blindfolded child and growl like the wolf 
in the story, the child trying to recognize each 
and tell his name by his voice. 

A Flower Game is played, suggested by the 
flowers which Little Red Riding Hood stopped 
to gather as she traveled through the woods on 
the way to her grandmother's house. The 
children divide themselves into two equal parties, 
each party with its goal marked by chairs or a 
line on the floor at opposite ends of the room. 
One party decides, without letting the other 
children know, what flower they will represent — 
whether daisies, lilacs, clovers, roses, sweet peas, 
or any perfumed posy. They then advance 
near the home line of the other players who try 
and guess the name of the flower they have 
chosen. When the right flower name is guessed, 



STORY PARTIES 171 

the children at once give chase to the flowers 
who run toward their goal, trying to get inside 
before any of their number are caught. Any 
children caught are taken prisoners by the oppo- 
site side and the game is continued until all the 
flowers are caught. 

After these games come the party refresh- 
ments which are served by Red Riding Hood 
herself, and the Grandmother. Each child 
receives a little basket containing as nearly as 
possible the lunch which the real Red Riding 
Hood carried in her basket to the house in the 
woods. There are little rolls, sandwiches with 
cream cheese filling, pots of honey and round 
frosted cakes, with a few candied flowers for 
dessert. The baskets which have big red bows 
tied to the handles are carried home as party 
favors. 

The Party the Three Bears Gave. The toy 
shops are so wonderfully stocked now, with bear 
suits and bear masks that it is very easy for 
children to dress up as the Bear family, especi- 
ally if there be a big, a middle sized, and a 
teeny child giving the party. Even home-made 
suits, cut and made by mother from brown 
cotton flannel will do perfectly well to costume 
the bears. 



172 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The invitations to the party are written on 
little blue porringers, cut from water color paper 
and painted with yellow stripes so that they look 
just like bowls. If one wishes, there may be 
three of these little bowls for each invitation, 
of varying sizes, the invitation being written on 
the largest one, after which the three are fastened 
together with a bow of blue ribbon. 

One of the little guests should be asked to come 
to the party as Golden Hair in a red cloak, little 
hood, and carrying a Teddy Bear in her arms. 

The party begins with a simple Nursery 
Pantomine, which may be very easily arranged 
at home. The end of the living room forms a 
stage, curtained off by couch covers, or a green 
denim curtain strung on a stout rope. 

The scene is the same for the entire panto- 
mime, the interior of the Three Bears' house, 
with its table holding three bowls of porridge, 

three chairs of different sizes, and three couches, 
one large, one medium sized, and one very small. 
The first pantomime shows the bears starting 
out for their walk in the wood. They taste 
their breakfast, find it too hot, the mother bear 
ties on the baby bear's sunbonnet, and they 
leave the house. Then Golden Hair enters, 



STORY PARTIES - 173 

looking about curiously. She tastes the por- 
ridge, eating up that of the baby bear; tries all 
the chairs, breaking the small one; and finally 
goes to sleep in the bed of the tiny bear. In 
the last pantomime the three bears come home, 
discover Golden Hair, and she makes her escape. 

The children have a Bear Contest after the 
pantomime. Each child is given a lump of 
plasticine, the new prepared clay, a board, flat 
wooden knife, and a square of stiff cardboard. 
With these they model bears, as life-like as 
possible, a real furry Teddy Bear being given 
as a prize to the most successful little sculptor. 

Bear Puzzles made previous to the party 
finish the entertainment part of the affair. 
Two or three toy picture books which illustrate 
the story of the Three Bears are cut up. The 
pictures of the bears, the woods, the house, and 

Golden Hair being mounted on heavy board 

and cut into small pieces forming perplexity 

puzzles. Each little guest is given one of these 

puzzles and the child who first puts his together, 

successfully, receives as a prize a real perplexity 

puzzle illustrating the story of the Three Bears. 

The Supper Table is decorated with a long 

line of bear animal crackers stuck in marsh- 



174 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

mallow standards and winding up and down the 
white cloth between toy Noah's Ark trees. 
There are cooky bears with ribbons tied about 
their necks at each child's place, and the party 
favors are Teddy Bear stick pins for the boys, 
and dolls dressed like Golden Hair of the story 
for the girls. 






A NOAH'S ARK PARTY 

HE invitations are cut from brown 
paper in the shape of a Noah's Ark, 
with windows drawn on the outside in 
red crayon and the ark roof is colored 
green. When the envelope is opened a white 
card inside shows this message : 

"If you want to escape the flood, board the 
Ark next Saturday afternoon. It leaves our 
house promptly at three/ ' 

Such a crowd of eager small boys in their 
best reefer suits, and curly-headed small girls 
in their best starched white frocks and biggest 
bows as throng the party piazza and ring the 
doorbell promptly at the hour set for the sailing 
of the Ark. 



176 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The door opens ana the guests are hurried 
upstairs, and into as many different rooms as 
possible to take off their wraps. Then each 
child is given an animal mask from a toy shop 
to put on and cover his face all up so that they 
may not know each other when they go down- 
stairs. There are lion masks, and bear masks, 
and monkey masks, and cat masks, but always 
two of a kind. As each child ties on his mask 
he goes down stairs to let the others try to guess 
who he is. 

The little hostess stands in the big hall, but 
no one knows her at first. She is dressed like 
Mrs. Noah in a long straight red gown with big 
buttons down the front, and she wears a tall red 
hat made of cardboard like a Mother Goose hat. 
The host is Mr. Noah in a long blue gown cut 
straight and his hat is made of black bristol 
board almost the same shape as a policeman's. 
In his hand he carries a long pole — it looks sus- 
piciously like a broom stick — with which to steer 
the Ark. 

It is ever so much fun to guess the animals' 
names. Of course, the lions only roar when 
they are spoken to, and the bears howl and the 
monkeys chatter. The guests are given slips 
of paper and pencils, and they write down a 



A NOAH'S ARK PARTY 177 

child's name as soon as they think they know it. 
At the end of five minutes the papers are col- 
lected and the longest list of correct answers wins 
a Teddy Bear for a prize. 

Then the children unmask and the procession 
forms to really board the Ark. The host and 
hostess lead and behind them march the guests 
with their masks over their arms, the bears and 
lions and all the rest coming, like the real ark 
animals, two by two. 

The home library is the Ark. The furniture 
is moved out, and the pictures are taken down, 
and there are no rugs to get in the way of the 
animals, but, instead of rugs, the floor is covered 
with a layer of sweet, clean sawdust, quite easy 
to sweep up, and just the thing for bears to walk 
on. And all around the room there are interest- 
ing things for animals to amuse themselves with 
during their long voyage. In one corner, a big 
black cambric cat with no tail hangs on the wall 
and a group of children each in turn being blind- 
folded, try to pin her missing tail in place. In 
another corner a group of children sit down and 
make a miniature ark and animals of ground 
nuts. Plenty of nuts and bits of paper, tooth- 
picks and paste are provided, and the children 
make some very lifelike nut animals. Two 



178 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

large white paper ears pasted, one on each side 
of a ground nut; two round eyes of pink paper; 
and a stumpy tail, make a bunny. One boy 
cuts from cardboard a very realistic camePs 
head. Then he selects a ground nut that has a 
hump and he slits one end and slips in the card- 
board head. Four toothpick legs and a string 
tail complete the camel. A ground nut elephant 
has toothpick tusks, big brown paper ears, and 
cardboard legs. There is a prize of a big choco- 
late mouse in this corner for the most successful 
ground nut beast. 

In a third corner of the room the little host 
tells fortunes. He has a cage made of four 
chairs with clothesline ropes, and his good wishes 
for the guests are written on big peppermint 
drops that he puts in the little hands stretched 
inside his cage. 

The fourth corner of the room is nearly the 
most popular of all, for all the jungle books are 
there and mother is ready to tell stories to any- 
one who cares to listen. 

Before any one can tell where the time has 
gone, the animals have visited all the exciting 
corners of the ark, and then formed a big circle 
in the middle of the sawdust floor to play circus. 
A ring master stands in the center of the circle. 



A NOAH'S ARK PARTY 179 

Whichever guest he points his stick at comes 
inside the ring and does a trick for the enter- 
tainment of the others. The bears dance and 
the monkeys try to turn somersaults. The 
camels walk around the circus in their strange, 
lumbering way and the horses prance and gallop. 
It is such a rollicking game and such fun that 
it lasts until a whistle sounds from somewhere — 
a signal that the Ark has touched land and it is 
time to go to supper. 

The guests match masks and put them on 
again as they form a line to march out to supper. 
More surprises await them, and such a pretty 
supper table! 

At each guest's place is a Noah's Ark card 
with the child's name written at the bottom. 
Pieces of white bristol board are used for the 
cards, and the decorations are copied from a toy 
ark. Opposite the cards at each little girl's 
place at the table is a Noah's Ark doll, queer 
little stiff wooden ones that cost just one penny 
apiece. They are dressed in long, tight red 
gowns and tall paper hats. At the boys' places 
are toy animals. 

In the center of the table is a little model of a 
toy ark. It is made of an old cardboard box, 
the cover being taken off and a pointed card- 



180 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

board roof fastened to it, after which the cover 
is replaced. Windows are cut in the sides of the 
box and then the whole is covered with red paper. 
It is glued to an oval piece of cardboard which is 
covered with some of the artificial moss in which 
toys are packed. Standing on the table around 
the ark are ever so many tiny, toy trees. A 
twig is stuck in a spool so it will stand upright, 
and the spool is covered with more artificial moss 
glued on. The twig itself is wound with fringed, 
green tissue paper, fastened on with green 
thread, which makes it look like a real Noah's 
Ark tree. 

Marching down the table, two by two from 
the ark, come a long line of animals. They are 
animal crackers stuck in marshmallows, but they 
form a very gallant procession. 

When the c 'pigs in blankets/' and the chicken 
sandwiches, and the animal cookies, and the ices 
frozen in the shape of animals, are all eaten; 
when the ark's roof is lifted off to show its cargo 
of candy mice, and the guests, regretfully, put on 
their wraps and say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. 
Noah, they are one and all decided that there 
never was such a fine party as this one in Noah's 
Ark land. 




A SOAP BUBBLE PARTY 




r will be the j oiliest sort of a party for 
Hallowe'en and absolutely unique. 
Who ever heard of a party at which 
soap suds formed the main entertain- 
ment! But that is all that it will be necessary 
to prepare for the soap bubble party, and the 
guests will go home saying that it was the best 
fun ever to just blow soap bubbles for a whole 
evening. 

The invitations are cut from rainbow tinted 
water color paper, in the shape of rather large 
pipes; but if it seems too difficult a process to 
tint the paper, white may be used; and each 
pipe tied with a bunch of very narrow ribbon of 
rainbow colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue 



182 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

and purple, the lettering being done in the bowl 
of the pipe. 

The preparations for the party are exceedingly 
simple : a quantity of clay pipes, more than there 
are guests, (for some will surely break), and a 
number of deep china bowls filled w T ith a strong 
solution of soft soap and water into which a 
teaspoonful of glycerine has been dropped. 
The glycerine mades a firmer soap suds, and 
more durable flexible bubbles. The bowls con- 
taining the soap suds should be placed on small 
tables scattered about the room and as soon as 
the guests arrive the fun begins. 

There are many strange kinds of bubbles with 
which the bubble blowers may experiment in 
groups. Four children may hold the four cor- 
ners of a woolen cloth while two others toss their 
soap bubbles on it, the contest being to see whose 
bubbles will bound up and down longest without 
breaking. Soap bubbles will keep their form 
a long time on a wool textile and the game will 
prove a most exciting one. 

Next, a group of children experiment to see 
who can blow the largest bubble. By blowing 
slowly and steadily, the bubble will grow to a 
most remarkable size. When it is almost at the 
bursting point, the child may toss it from his 



A SOAP BUBBLE PARTY 183 

pipe, and up in the air, to see if it will float higher 
than any of the others. 

If some grown-up person can be persuaded to 
help in the operation, it will be possible for the 
children to blow some novel gas bubbles, enor- 
mous in size and strange in shape. A narrow 
rubber tube should be attached to the gas jet 
and at the other end of the tube the stem of a 
clay pipe is slipped in. The pipe is then dipped 
in the soap suds and the gas turned on very 
gradually, just a little way. Immediately a 
giant bubble begins to form on the bowl of the 
pipe, growing larger and larger, and glowing 
with the rainbow colors which the lights of the 
room make upon its transparent surface. As 
soon as it detaches itself from the pipe and flies 
away up in the air, the gas should be turned off — 
the pipe dipped again in the soap suds, and a new 
bubble begun. 

It is possible to blow bubbles in the hands — 
without the help of any pipe at all! Cover the 
hands with soap suds, thickly, and then clasp 
them so as to form a cup with a small opening at 
the bottom. Then blow hard, holding your 
head about a foot away from your hands. 
There should be a fine, big bubble in your hands 
if you are able to blow hard enough and you may 



184 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

unclasp them and toss the bubble in your 
neighbor's face, surprising him when he is not 
looking. 

Smoke Bubbles are very dainty and pretty 
The bowl of a pipe is filled with soap suds and 
then the child, holding the pipe right side up, 
blows a string of tiny bubbles which drop down 
over the side in a chain of colored spheres. 
You will be able to keep these little smoke 
bubbles floating about in the air of a room for 
ever so long, too, before they burst, by just 
giving them an extra puff as they leave the pipe's 
bowl. 

When the party guests tire of group bubble 
blowing, a splendid Soap Bubble Game may be 
started. A long table should be covered pre- 
viously with a woolen cloth. An old shawl will 
serve the purpose very well if it is fastened to 
the under part of the table by thumb tacks, so 
that the table surface will be firm and smooth. 
At either end of the table two little wooden 
stakes should be set up and wound with bright 
colored ribbons. The stakes from a parlor 
croquet set will do double duty for these bubble 
stakes. A bowl of strong soap suds is set on a 
small stand at each end of the long table. The 
children are all provided with pipes. The 



A SOAP BUBBLE PARTY 185 

players are then divided into two equal groups 
and they form themselves in line on either side 
of the table. Each captain blows a bubble 
which he drops to the woolen covering of the 
table at the stake nearest him. The child next 
in rank must immediately bowl the captain's 
bubble with his own, the length of the table if 
he can, and then move up one place, playing 
captain, while the captains go around the table 
to the end of the line. It sounds a difficult feat, 
but is a jolly and a possible one. Each player 
is allowed three turns at bowling and if he is so 
successful as to send the captain's bubble as far 
as the opposite stake, he scores ten. An oppos- 
ing player may try to prevent a play by trying 
to bowl his bubbles so as to hit and break those 
of his opponent. Another way of having this 
bubble contest is to give all the players a chance, 
separately. Each child blows his own bubbles 
and plays for himself, being allowed five succes- 
sive trials in his attempt to hit the stake with a 
bubble. 

By this time the bubble blowers will be ready 
to do something a trifle less strenuous. They 
may seat themselves about the table, or in little 
groups, and provided with new clay pipes, 
scraps of crepe paper, or bright cloth, plenty of 
pins, scissors, needles and thread and pencils, 



186 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

they may see who will be most successful in 
dressing up his or her pipe, so that it will look 
like a real person. 

It will be found a most entertaining and fasci- 
nating party occupation for either little folks or 
big folks and will keep everybody busy and happy 
until the party is over. 

One of the pipes may appear as a clown, 
dressed in a full garment of red crepe paper 
having big white dots pasted on, and twists of 
white tissue paper for hands and feet. He has 
a full white ruffle about his neck and a pointed 
dunce's cap upon his head. The clown's feat- 
ures are done on the outside of the pipe bowl 
with a pencil and the lump at the bottom of the 
pipe makes the funniest whiskers for the little 
pipe clown. 

A second pipe may be dressed as a little old 
lady, the knot on the pipe forming her nose. 
She should have pencilled spectacles and a full 
calico skirt. Twisted tissue or crepe paper 
glued to the pipe forms her arms and she should 
have a white kerchief about her neck and a 
white apron. 

A prize should be offered for the cleverest pipe 
doll and after each guest has dressed one, they 
can be used as favors at each guest's place for 
the party supper. 




A VALENTINE PARTY 




HE invitations are written in a child's 
best copy-book hand on some scarlet 
cardboard hearts, and they bear this 
message : 

"The King and Queen of Hearts invite you 
to their party, February the fourteenth, nine- 
teen hundred and eleven, at three o 7 clock." 

And when the eventful day comes, the guests 
are met at the door of the party house by their 
little host and hostess dressed like the royal 
King and Queen of Hearts whom Mother Goose 
has made famous for us; the king in his best 
white suit, but wearing a gold paper crown and 
a long white cloak on which tiny red paper 
hearts are pasted; the queen in a gold paper 



188 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

heart tiara and a tulle dress covered, also, with 
red paper hearts. 

As soon as the guests have been greeted, and 
have left their wraps upstairs, some valentine 
games are started by the little King and Queen 
of Hearts. A big red heart, made of red card- 
board and having a picture of a Mother Goose 
character cut from a picture book and pasted 
on the back, is hung about each guest's neck by 
a gilt cord — the picture being turned inside, 
however. The children are then asked to ques- 
tion each other — trying to discover the Mother 
Goose character to whom they are talking. Pads 
of paper tied with red ribbon and tiny red pen- 
cils are provided for writing down lists of the 
characters guessed. A heart-shaped box of 
candy is the prize for the longest list of correct 
names, and the guessing contest is a splendid 
way of "breaking party ice" and getting every 
one acquainted with everybody else. 

A Heart Hunt is the next game. The Queen of 
Hearts gives each of her guests a little red cam- 
bric bag and instructs them to fill it with as 
many hearts as they are able to find. Previous 
to the party she cut hundreds of tiny red card- 
board hearts and hid them about the rooms 
where the party is held — in corners, beneath 



A VALENTINE PARTY 189 

books, under the edges of the rugs, and in every 
conceivable place. The guests enjoy a merry 
scramble as they hunt for the hearts, and when 
the bags are full, all the hearts are counted, and 
the child who had the sharpest eyes and found 
the largest number of hearts is rewarded by a 
big lace paper velentine as a prize. 

Next, the King of Hearts takes his guests 
on a fishing trip to hook — not fish — but valen- 
tines. A number of fish ponds, enough to 
accommodate all the guests have been made by 
the little host and hostess and laid out on a long 
table. They are empty suit boxes, inverted, 
and having slits cut in the bottom, long enough 
to hold a valentine. The valentines are, most 
of them, picture post cards and just one corner 
in which a hole has been made shows through 
the slit in the fish pond. Each little fisherman 
is given a fish line, just a twig pole with a red 
cord line tied on and a hook made of a bent hair 
pin attached to the end of the line, and, at a 
signal from the King of Hearts, they begin fish- 
ing for valentines. It is not an easy feat to 
secure one with the hair pin hook and draw it 
out, and the fishing will keep all the guests busy 
until it is time for the party supper. 

A merry march headed by the King and Queen 



190 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

of Hearts leads to the room where the party 
table is laid. Such a pretty sight as greets the 
eyes of the guests! Over the center of the table, 
hung from the chandelier, is a big red heart to 
which a shower of smaller gold paper hearts is 
fastened by very narrow red ribbons of varying 
lengths. Hosts of tiny red hearts are scattered 
over the white table cloth, and festoons of the 
same, strung on gilt cord, are draped along the 
edge of the table cloth. At each guest's place 
there is a crown made of cardboard and gilded. 
When the children don them they look like real 
subjects of the King and Queen — host and 
hostess. 

The place cards are larger red hearts enclosed 
in envelopes, and having a heart painted in 
water colors in the corner instead of a stamp. 
The guest's name is written in the address space 
in red ink. Beside each plate there is a red 
paper ice cup filled with red and white pepper- 
mint hearts. In addition, there are arrow 
favors, cut from red cardboard and having a 
tiny gold heart hanging from one end by a 
length of red ribbon. A pin is attached to the 
under side of each arrow so the children can 
wear them, fastened to their blouses and party 
gowns. 



A VALENTINE PARTY 191 



The supper menu is a simple one, but attract- 
ive because it is suited to a Valentine party. 

Creamed Chicken on Toast 

(The toast cut heart-shape) 

Delmonico Potatoes 
Bread and Butter Sandwiches 

(Cut heart-shape, and tied with narrow red ribbon) 

Peas 

(Served in hollowed beets) 

Currant Jelly Heart Cookies (Pink Frosting) 
Ice Cream (Strawberry in heart moulds) 





THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 

"Please may I have a Birthday Party?" 

HE request seems to entail so much 
expense, and such a sum of nerves at 
the end of the affair; and what form 
of entertainment can there be all the 
long afternoon or evening of the party that will 
keep the children wholesomely happy and charm- 
ingly entertained? 

Still, a birthday party for any month in the 
year may be easily planned at home and may be 
unique as to games, favors, and the scheme of 
table decoration. The children, themselves, 
may help with the exciting preparations, and 
they will play the part of host and hostess with 
added grace if they have had a share in the 



194 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

hospitality to be dispensed. No great expense 
need be involved, and the birthday party for 
January or June may be novel, cheap, and a 
whole lot of fun. 

The birthday that falls in January may be 
celebrated by a Twelfth Night Party. The 
guests, as soon as they arrive, are led by the 
boy or girl host in a series of old English games, 
some of which were played in Merrie England on 
Twelfth Night in the castles of the old kings and 
queens. 

Turn the Trencher may be the first game 
because it is a rollicking, jolly one for waking 
up the party wall flowers. The players seat 
themselves in a cricle, on the floor, if they can 
be persuaded to. One player picks up the 
trencher, a wooden dish or platter, and sets it 
spinning in the middle of the circle, at the same 
time calling out the name of one of the other 
guests. The guest called must jump up, reach 
the trencher before it stops spinning and set it 
going again, calling someone else. It will add 
to the fun of the game if the players take unique 
names instead of their own; the names of patent 
medicines, or animals, or towns. 

Snap Dragon follows — a game always played 
at the old Twelfth Night entertainments. 



THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 195 

Several deep platters are filled with raisins over 
which a little salt and alcohol is sprinkled. The 
alcohol is touched with a lighted match upon 
which a blue flame arises. The players try to 
pull out as many raisins as they can, a rather 
difficult feat, since they are apt to burn their 
fingers. The prize for the guest who has the 
most raisins by the time the flame burns out is 
a candy box in the shape of a plum pudding 
filled with sweets. The lights in the room 
should be turned low during this game. 

Apple Snapping waits the guests in another 
room. A number of big red apples are suspended 
from the gas jets and the chandelier by narrow 
crimson ribbons. Partners are chosen, two 
children for each apple. Their hands are bound 
with red ribbons and they try to bite the swing- 
ing apples; the partners succeeding first in eating 
their apples lead the supper march. 

Before forming the line of march to the sup- 
per room, each guest is provided with a sheet for 
a robe and a black cambric mask. The masks 
can be easily made at home and the guests will 
bring their own sheets if they are requested to 
in the party invitations. The supper room is 
darkened, the only light being that of candles. 
The table has red cambric squares laid beneath 



196 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

the drawn work or lace paper doilies that cover 
it. At each guest's place there is a little frosted 
cake with one tiny red candle in the top, lighted, 
and the favors — fancy caps in snappers, deco- 
rated with sprays of holly — are opposite the 
cakes. A big Yuletide cake, round and full 
of fruit, and thick with frosting stands in the 
middle of the table, with blazing candelabra on 
each side. Stuck in the top of the cake are a 
myriad of the German Christmas tree sparklers 
that burst into stars as soon as they are lighted. 
As the guests seat themselves at the table, the 
sparklers are touched with a burning taper and 
the supper opens with a blaze of starlight. 
The big cake, by the way, discloses a bright 
dime, a thimble, and a ring when its generous 
slices are cut. 

A fascinating child's birthday party illustrates 
the days of the week. The party opens with 
some simple Vivants Tableaux picturing the old 
rhyme : 

' 'Monday's bairn is fair of face, 
Tuesday's bairn is full of grace, 
Wednesday's bairn is a bairn of woe, 
Thursday's bairn has far to go, 
Friday's bairn is good and given, 
Saturday's bairn has to work for a living — 



THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 197 

But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day 
Is good, and bonny, and fair and gay." 

The guests are gathered in one room, facing a 
smaller room or foyer where the pictures are 
shown. 

Lights are lowered and the portieres are drawn 
back to disclose Monday's bairn — just a fluffy, 
yellow-haired tot who curtsies to the audience 
as the curtains are pulled together again. 
Tuesday's bairn is dressed in some gay national 
costume, Russian, Dutch, or Irish, and executes 
one of the charming folk dances. Wednesday's 
bairn has a very dilapidated doll which she holds 
as she sings Kingsley's classic lullaby: 

i T once had a sweet little doll, dears," 

Thursday's bairn is a small boy in a man's 
hat and duster, who rushes into the room pell 
mell, burdened with a suit case, a grip, an 
umbrella, and as many tennis rackets, ball bats 
and golf sticks as he can carry. As he pulls out 
of his pockets a shower of time tables, he asks 
of the audience excitedly : 

1 'What time does the two o'clock train go? 

To which somebody replies: "Two o'clock," 
and the curtains are drawn. 

Friday's bairn is a dainty little girl with a 



198 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

basket of toy favors on her arm, and she steps 
out among the guests, distributing them. To 
the children who were born on Monday, she 
gives toy wash tubs and boards; Tuesday's 
children receive miniature ironing boards and 
little flat irons. Wednesday's children are given 
work bags or thimbles ; Thursday's, little brooms ; 
Friday's, sets of tin baking dishes; Saturday's, 
dolls for the girls, and bags of marbles for the 
boys; and the children born on Sunday receive 
books of fairy tales as being the children spec- 
ially loved by the fairy folk. 

Saturday's bairn who "works for a living" is 
impersonated by a little girl dressed in a long 
apron and cap, who sweeps as she dances and 
sings the old nursery rhyme — 
1 'Monday I bake and Tuesday I brew, etc." 

Sunday's bairn is a quick glimpse of some real 
picture child dressed in her very best clothes, 
and the end of the simple entertainment is a 
last tableaux showing all the children who 
impersonated the days of the week, as they 
repeat the old rhyme in unison, or sign it, if 
mother is clever enough to set the words to a 
simple tune. 

After the tableaux, some week-day games are 
played. 



THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 199 

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush heads 
the list, the favorite old ring game in which the 
children join hands and circle about, singing: 

1 'Here we go round the mulberry bush, the 
mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, 
Here we go round the mulberry bush, 
So early in the morning. " 

At the end of each verse the children stand 
still and sing: 

' This is the way we wash our clothes. 
Wash our clothes, 
Wash our clothes, 

This is the way we wash our clothes 
So early in the morning. " 

Repeating their circling until they have gone 
through all the occupations of the days of the 
week. 

Visiting Game will delight little birthdayites. 
The children join hands, but form two lines on 
opposite sides of the room. One line approaches 
the other, singing, to the tune of Yankee Doodle : 

"I went to see my friend, today, 
She only lives across the way, 
She said she couldn't go out to play 
Because it was her washing day." 



200 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

At the last word all the children begin washing, 
vigorously singing: 

1 'This is the way she washed away, 
This is the way she washed away, 
This is the way she washed away 
The day she couldn't go out to play." 

The song is repeated, the lines crossing alter- 
nately to meet each other, singing for each day 
of the week: 

1 'This is the way she ironed away, 
This is the way she swept away, etc.," 

until Saturday is reached. Then they sing: 

"She said she could go out to play, 
Because it was her playing day." 

They find partners as the two lines meet, and 
the game ends in a two-step. 

A Thimble Party for a little girl will prove a 
most happy afternoon fete and it has the advant- 
age of being economical as well as unique. 
The invitations have this rhyme written on. 
by the little girl in whose honor the party is 
being given. 






THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 201 

"Monday I wash, 
And Tuesday I brew; 
Wednesday there's sweeping and 

dusting to do. 
Thursday I market, 
And Friday, I play, 
But the thimble's the password 

for Saturday. 
Please come to my party, your 

thimble and you! 
There is baking, and sewing, and 

romping to do." 

In the upper corner of each invitation a tiny 
thimble is sketched, or a pair of scissors. 

When the guests arrive, a variation of the 
favorite game of Hide the Thimble is played. 
The thimble is secreted in the living room in an 
inconspicuous corner, in sight, and yet hidden. 
The small hostess (if she is big enough) or a 
grown person plays high and low music on the 
piano as one child at a time hunts for the 
thimble. Bass notes on the piano indicate that 
the child is far away from the thimble, while a 
tune played in the treble shows that she is near. 
As soon as the thimble is found, a second child 
leaves the room and the thimble is again hidden. 



202 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The game will keep the little folks interested 
and amused a long time. 

The j oiliest part of the entertainment comes 
at the end of the thimble game when the guests 
are invited to the kitchen to make thimble 
biscuit. Some ordinary biscuit dough has been 
prepared by mother or cook, and each little 
girl is given a tiny rolling pin, which may be 
bought for five cents, and a bit of dough. Stand- 
ing about the kitchen tables the children roll 
the biscuit dough to a thickness of one-third the 
height of the silver thimble which they have 
brought with them. The thimbles are then 
floured, and each child cuts out as many tiny 
thimble biscuits as her lump of dough will allow, 
fitting them in a tin muffin pan, and baking 
them in the oven. They will bake in no time, 
and the fun of making them will seem to the 
little guests to surpass any imagined party 
delight. If mother does not mind the trouble, 
each child may mix her own dough of flour, 
water or milk, a little salt and baking powder 
adding to the thimble fun. 

As soon as the biscuits are baked the children 
carry them up to the dining room where the 
party supper is spread. At each child's place 
there is a little work basket which will please 



THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 203 

her more than a vastly more expensive favor. 
The round, grass baskets which figs come in 
at the grocers are the work basket foundations. 
They are lined with pink or blue silk, and each 
basket contains a spool of thread, a pair of tiny 
blunt pointed scissors that may be bought in one 
of the Kindergarten shops for ten cents a pair; 
a paper of needles; and a roll of bright cloth 
scraps dear to every little girl's heart as a founda- 
tion for doll's dresses. 

The center decoration of the table is a big 
birthday cake, covered with candles and having 
as many tiny bisque dolls standing in the icing 
as there are party guests. When the cake is cut, 
a doll falls to the portion of each child, and in 
one slice there is found a little silver thimble 
that was dropped into the dough and baked with 
the cake. 

As the children go home with their work 
baskets, dolls and rolls of pieces, they will be full 
of delight over the pleasures of their thimble 
party. 

A Sunbonnet Baby Party is another scheme of 
afternoon entertainment that may be easily 
carried out for a child's birthday party. 

Each invitation, written on the sunbonnet 
baby note paper which is found in every sta- 



204 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

tioner's shop, requests that the guests come in 
costume, the boys in overalls, and the girls in 
gingham sunbonnets. Or, the sunbonnets can 
be made beforehand by the child hostess of 
red and white, and blue and white tissue paper. 
The sunbonnet rims have an interlining of stiff 
white paper, over which the checked tissue is 
pasted, and gather at the back to form the full 
crown. 

The first event of the party is a grand march, 
in which each sunbonnet girl has a sunbonnet 
boy for a partner. Then follows a clothespin 
game, since sunbonnet babies are supposed to 
have the art of washing added to their long list 
of accomplishments. The guests are arranged, 
started down the line, one at a time. Each child 
must take each clothespin and pass it to his neigh- 
bor, and if one falls to the floor it is to be picked up 
by the child who dropped it, and started over 
again. As soon as all the clothespins reach the 
end of the line they are passed back to the start- 
ing point again, that side winning which first 
gets back all its clothespins. 

The game of Little Boy Blue follows as a 
special delight for the overall boys. One boy is 
chosen to impersonate Boy Blue, and he is 
given a very soft toned horn. Another child is 



THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 205 

chosen who is blindfolded while Boy Blue hides 
in another room, the hall, or any available place. 
As soon as he is hidden, the other children sing : 

1 'Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn, 
The sheep's in the meadow, 
The cow's in the corn. 
Where's the boy who tends the sheep ? 
He's under the haystack, fast asleep." 

The end of the rhyme is a signal for Boy Blue 
to blow his horn, and the blindfolded child tries 
to point in the direction from which the sound 
comes. The game is continued until each child 
has had a chance to guess. 

The game program ends with the making of 
Sunbonnet Baby Puzzles. Postcards having 
pictures of sunbonnet children are given to each 
child, together with some bristol board cards, 
scissors, and paste. Each child cuts out a sun- 
bonnet child, mounting it on a card back, and 
cutting it up into sections forming perplexity 
puzzles. The pieces of the puzzle are then put 
in a box, mixed up and scattered in the center of 
a long table about which the children group 
themselves to try and see who will be able first 
to put together the parts of one of the puzzles 
and who can do the greatest number in the 



206 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

shortest time. Simple prizes should reward the 
successful children. A toy washing set, includ- 
ing tub, table and flat iron and set of tiny clothes- 
pins will please the little girl winner. The boy 
who puts together the most puzzles receives a 
set of garden tools, rake shovel and hoe. A 
picture of the Sunbonnet Babies in a passe- 
partout frame is the consolation prize. 

The Sunbonnet Babies' supper table has a 
wonder ball in the center which rests in a little 
wooden wheelbarrow, or a red toy cart. A doll 
dressed in blue jean overalls, wheels the barrow, 
or draws the cart; on top of the ball a doll dressed 
in a full gingham dress and sunbonnet is seated. 
The ball, itself, is fascinating and easy of con- 
struction. The children's party favors, which 
are most inexpensive toys, horns and candy- 
filled drums for the boys and hair ribbons for 
the girls, are wrapped in tissue paper, tied with 
long streamers of pink and blue ribbon and rolled 
by means of cotton wadding into the shape of 
a big ball. They are then covered with an outer 
wrapping of white tissue paper through which 
the ribbon streamers are sewed and stretch from 
the ball to the children's places. They end at 
the place cards which have sunbonnet children 
painted on. At the end of the party feast the 



THE CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY 207 

ribbons are pulled, the wonder ball bursts and 
discloses its burden of toys. 

A Peanut Party is delightfully simple for a 
mother to prepare and will amuse children 
hugely. 

There are all sorts of peanut games to be 
played. One small table may hold a big bowl 
of the fascinating nuts, and a group of children 
armed with hat pins try to stab them. The 
child who has the most peanuts at the end of five 
minutes wins the game. Another small table is 
equipped for peanut jack straws. There is a 
pile of peanuts in the center which the children 
must extract, one by one, without moving the 
others in the pile, by means of tooth picks. A 
third table has more peanuts, toothpicks, pen- 
cils, paste, and scraps of white paper by means 
of which the children can make all sorts of 
strange peanut animals. A pair of paper wings 
will transform a peanut into a butterfly; four 
toothpick legs and a cut-out paper trunk make a 
peanut elephant; and countless other peanut 
beasts can be made by the ingenious child. 

At the end of these peanut games, each guest 
is provided with a little bag, made of bright cloth 
for the occasion, and there is a merry hunt for 
peanuts which have been hidden in nooks and 
corners all over the house. 



208 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

The supper has a peanut menu. There are 
peanut-butter sandwiches, cookies with chopped 
peanuts inside, nut salad, salted peanuts, and 
delectable peanut taffy in addition to the ever 
necessary ice cream which is served with nut 
sauce. 






A PETER RABBIT PARTY 

HERE is the child who does not love 
Peter Rabbit of story book form? 
The very naughty but fascinating little 
bunny with his blue jacket and brass 
buttons has gone "lippity lippity" into the 
hearts of little people all over the world, and his 
thrilling adventures in Farmer McGregor's gar- 
den have been read or told until children have 
them learned by heart. So when a child's 
Easter party is to be given, "Peter Rabbit" 
will prove a most delightful host. 

The invitation to the party is a little brown 
bunny, dressed like Peter, and it fills any little 
guest who receives it with delightful anticipation. 

The invitation cards may be easily made by 



210 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

the child giving the party, if a stencil is used. 
The figure of a rabbit is first drawn on stiff 
paper or cardboard and the outline is cut with 
a sharp knife. The stencil should be pinned or 
fastened with thumb tacks securely to the white 
invitation card, and the figure painted in with 
brown water color. A blue jacket may be cut 
from paper and pasted on the little figure and the 
buttons are cut from gold paper or made with a 
fine brush and gold paint. The edges of the 
card should be bordered with gold and the invi- 
tation may be printed in gold or written in ink 
below the figure of the rabbit. 

The little host or hostess in whose honor the 
party is given should be dressed to represent 
Peter. A brown suit may be made of canton 
flannel after the pattern of a child's night 
drawers, with a hood coming up over the back 
of the child's head and covering the forehead. 
Very long ears, stiffened with wire or cardboard 
so that they may stand erect, and a short 
stubby tail make this Peter Rabbit costume 
very real to the child if a blue flannel jacket is 
made or slipped on over it. To add to the fun, 
five more children may be dressed to imperson- 
ate the other characters in the story. Mrs. 
Rabbit should have on a blue dress and a white 



A PETER RABBIT PARTY 21 1 

apron. "Flopsy," "Mopsy," and "Cotton 
Tail" are dressed in little red capes, and a small 
boy in overalls and straw hat impersonates 
Farmer McGregor. 

The old game of "Fox and Geese" begins the 
party, "Peter Rabbit" being substituted for 
the Goose, and Farmer McGregor for the fox. 
The children stand in a double circle, one behind 
the other, facing in. "Peter" runs in and out, 
chased by the farmer. When Peter thinks he is 
in danger of being caught or is tired from run- 
ning, he may stand in front of any child in the 
inside circle. The third child in the row — the 
one in the rear — then takes Peter' s place and the 
chase goes on. If Peter is caught, he becomes 
the farmer. 

The next party game is a variation of the old 
delightful one of the Donkey's Tail adapted to 
Peter Rabbit's use. A blue jacket is cut from 
cloth or paper and pasted or sewed to a sheet. 
This sheet is fastened to the wall by means of 
thumb tacks, taking care that the jacket is 
within reach of the children who are playing the 
game. Each child is given a gilt button, real, 
or cut from paper, and a pin with which he is 
to try and fasten the button to the blue jacket 
that is so delightfully like the real one worn by 



212 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

"Peter." Blindfolded, and turned about three 
times, each child walks forward and pins the 
button wherever his hand first touches the cloth. 
To the child who pins a button in the right place 
on the jacket, a candy easter egg or a papier 
mache rabbit filled with candy is given as a 
prize. 

The party feast and the gala decorations for 
the supper table are always the chief joy of a 
party for little folks. At the Peter Rabbit party, 
a real bunny stands in the center of the table. 
He may be a big rabbit bought at a toy shop, or 
better still, he can be made of brown flannel 
stuffed with paper. "Peter" is seated in a bed 
of cabbage or lettuce leaves. These are made 
by cutting and crinkling green tissue paper in 
three shades, dark, medium, and a yellow green 
in the shape of large oval-shaped leaves 

"Peter" holds in his paws a big orange paper 
carrot that contains the children's party favors. 
The carrot is made on a rolled cotton founda- 
tion in which small gifts are wrapped. The 
outside is then covered with orange tissue paper 
to indicate the markings of the carrot, and a 
fringe of green tissue paper finishes one end. 

To each gift hidden inside the carrot, a narrow 
orange ribbon is tied and threaded into a needle, 



A PETER RABBIT PARTY 213 

is brought out through the orange covering of the 
carrot. As "Peter" holds the carrot in his 
paws, one ribbon streamer is stretched to each 
child's place and may be pulled at the end of the 
feast when the carrot bursts and discloses its 
hidden store of gifts. 

At each child's place stands a cabbage candy 
box. Small, round cardboard boxes form the 
foundations for the cabbages. Pasted in a close 
row to the bottom of the box are round, green 
tissue paper leaves having the edges crinkled 
and frilled with the fingers to look cabbage-like. 
Above this row of leaves is a second row cut 
from a lighter shade of paper and fastened to 
the side of the box. A third row of yellow 
leaves is cut and twisted and pasted to the very 
edge of the box, bending over and almost hiding 
the store of candy eggs that fills the box. 

Opposite the cabbage candy boxes each guest 
finds a horn in the shape of a radish. A penny tin 
horn is covered with scarlet tissue paper and 
finished at the end with a fringe of green crepe 
paper. The children who are giving the party 
can make the candy boxes and cover the horns. 

The small host in his Peter Rabbit costume 
sits at the head of the table, and dispenses egg 
sandwiches tied with narrow green or yellow 



214 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

ribbons. At the foot of the table, Mrs. Rabbit, 
the small hostess in her blue gingham dress and 
white apron serves egg salad garnished with real 
lettuce and parsley. After these more sub- 
stantial edibles are disposed of, sugar cookies 
cut in the shape of chickens and ices in egg and 
flower shapes are served. Last of all the carrot 
ribbons are pulled, and the children receive their 
gifts from Peter Rabbit, diminutive sets of 
garden tools for the boys, and rabbit stick pins 
for the girls. 






A GINGERBREAD PARTY FOR CHILDREN 

HE invitations to this delightfully novel 
party for little folks are made of heavy 
brown wrapping paper cut in circles 
the size of a ginger cooky. Each cir- 
cle is scalloped around the edge, and has this 
rhyme written on it in red ink: 

1 'Come to my party as many as can. 
Come for a romp with the Gingerbread Man. 
Gingerbread smiles on my gingerbread face, 
Gingerbread buttons are neatly in place. 
Raisins, the eyes that are watching for you. 
Come to my party on Tuesday at two." 

These cooky invitations are placed in large 
envelopes having the child's name lettered on 
the outside and in one corner, instead of a 



216 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

stamp, there is a little cooky man drawn with 
pencil and painted with brown water colors. 

The little host who is giving the gingerbread 
party is dressed in a simple, homemade costume 
that gives him the appearance of the Ginger- 
bread boy of story-book form. A close fitting 
suit, cut waist and trousers in one, is made of 
brown cambric. A round hood sewed to the 
neck slips over the child's head, and down the 
front of the costume there are big buttons made 
of crepe paper crinkled over a cotton founda- 
tion to look like raisins. Brown cambric mit- 
tens cover the child's hands and he may wear 
a string of ginger snaps or raisins around his 
neck to make him still more realistic. 

The party table is the most delightful part of 
the w^hole gingerbread affair. The center deco- 
ration is a little house, the home of the Ginger- 
bread Man. A cardboard box, inverted, is the 
foundation for the miniature house. A square 
box of convenient size for the center of the table 
is selected and a square door and two windows 
are cut in the front and sides. A gable roof for 
the house is made of stiff cardboard, or any 
rough, heavy paper, and is glued to the box. 
Then the whole outside surface of the house is 
coated with glue, and red and white peppermint 



A GINGERBREAD PARTY 217 

sticks are placed on the roof for shingles, entirely 
covering it. The sides, front, and back of the 
house are clapboarded with ginger snaps laid 
on the glued cardboard surface of the box and 
held firmly in place, only the doors and windows 
showing. Tiny white swiss curtains are glued 
inside the windows and a gingerbread doll boy 
with raisin eyes and buttons is baked and stands 
in the doorway of the gingerbread house. Pep- 
permint sticks make an old fashioned rail fence 
on the bare surface of the table about the house, 
and some toy Noah's Ark trees may be placed 
inside to form an imaginary garden. 

The gingerbread house shelters the little 
guests' dinner favors. These are toys chosen 
with the view to their general fitness for the 
scheme of the entertainment. They are inex- 
pensive, but most welcome to the children; tin 
kitchen sets in boxes, and wooden dishes for the 
girls; toy animals like those in the story of the 
Gingerbread Man, for the boys. These gifts 
are wrapped in brown tissue paper, making flat, 
round parcels the shape of cookies, tied with 
scarlet ribbon. They are quite concealed when 
slipped underneath the house and form a delight- 
ful surprise at the end of the feast. 

At each child's place at table there is a ginger- 



218 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

bread toy. These toys, horses, men, roosters 
and cats, made of hard gingerbread frosted pink 
and white, can be bought at slight cost at many 
of the favor shops. If they are not available, 
gingerbread men can be made of cooky dough 
by the home cook, to stand at each place. The 
party menu is simple, but attractive because it 
is different, and brown. 

Cocoa 

Peanut Butter Sandwiches Curry of Chicken 

Ginger Preserve 

Ginger Nuts Ginger Ice Cream 

Ginger Cookies 

Ginger Pop 

A delightful game for the gingerbread party is 
the old English one of The Baker. The children 
join hands making a ring about one child who 
stands in the center: this child goes from one 
player to another, saying: 

"Here I bake } 
Here I brew. 

Here I make a ginger cake. 
Here I make a jelly cake." 

repeating the sentence, but using as many 



A GINGERBREAD PARTY 



219 



different varieties of cake as she chooses until 
she says: 

"Here I break through," when she attempts 
to make her way out of the circle. If she is 
not able to break through at the first attempt, 
she must persevere until she does. 

At the end of the party each child is given a 
bag of home-made ginger cookies to take home, 
and the gingerbread party is called a most happy 
one by the little guests. 






A PLANTATION PARTY 

T IS a home party, inexpensive in its 
detail, but so delightfully novel in 
result that whether it be enjoyed by 
the group of children just home from 
the south and anxious for this opportunity to 
talk over their experiences, or planned for some 
little folks who have never enjoyed a winter 
beneath the blue sky of the south, it is equally 
enjoyable. 

The supper table represents an old Virginia 
plantation. As large a space as can be spared 
in the center of the table is used for a miniature 
cotton field. Over the white doily a runner of 
green crepe paper is laid in imitation of grass. 
Dotted here and there upon the green and 



222 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

fastened by pins are tufts of cotton batting form- 
ing a miniature cotton field. Half a dozen tiny 
log cabins, made of clothespins and glued to 
squares of brown cardboard which form the 
floors of the cabins, stand in the fields of cotton. 
At the door of each cabin stands an old black 
mammy doll and some little pickaninnies. These 
mammy dolls are made of black cambric rolled 
up in rag doll fashion and dressed in red checked 
gingham or bits of gay calico. Each doll wears 
a red cambric bandanna knotted around her rag 
head, and her features include bead eyes and a 
red worsted mouth. The pickaninnies are tiny, 
black china dolls dressed in red and yellow cot- 
ton shirts. 

The place decorations for this plantation party 
include name cards cut from water color paper 
in the shape of guitars, fiddles, and banjos, and 
painted with water colors. The candy boxes 
which stand at each place are made in imitation 
of cotton bolls. To make these boxes, circles of 
cotton batting are cut and glued about a cir- 
cular cardboard ice cup, almost covering it. 
Smaller circles cut from heavy brown paper and 
glued to the bottom of the ice cup from the 
brown leaves of the cotton boll and a brown 
covered wire stem three inches long glued to the 



A PLANTATION PARTY 223 

under side of each finishes the unique candy box. 
Small candies in the form of potatoes or pebbles 
fill the cotton bolls. 

The supper menu for the plantation party 
follows the plan of a home meal in Virginia dur- 
ing plantation days. All the food is placed on 
the table and served in Southern fashion, each 
dish being passed by the guest near whom it is 
placed to his neighbor, and so on down the table. 
Old-fashioned china is used, if available, and 
the beverages are served in quaint tall glass 
goblets. 

Turkey Sandwiches 

Chicken Salad Yams, cooked with Molasses 

Homemade Pickles and Jellies 

Hot Waffles or Beaten Biscuit served with 

Honey 

Lady Baltimore Cake Preserves 

Mint Julep 

Following this plantation supper there is an 
evening of Southern entertainment. There is a 
Virginia Reel, and some of the guests, disguised 
by black masks and dressed in calico gowns or 
gingham suits, may hold an impromptu minstrel 
show. 

Games for the evening include the jolly one 



224 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

of Old Mammy Jinnie. The guests playing the 
game stand in a large circle. One player is 
chosen for the leader of the game and at a given 
signal which opens the fun, she says to her 
neighbor: 

"OP Mammy Jinnie' s dead." 
The neighbor replies : 

' 'I 'clar to gracious! How did she die?" 
The leader replies: 

"Doing so," and begins shaking her right 
hand. 
Then the second player says to his neighbor: 

"OP Mammy Jinnie's dead." 
The third player replies: 

' 'I 'clar to gracious! How did she die?" 

"Doing so," says the second player, who 
begins shaking his hand also. This play of 
answers and questions is continued around the 
circle until all the players are busily engaged 
shaking their right hands. Then the leader 
takes up the game, repeating the announcement 
of oP Mammy Jinnie's death and the story, 
shaking his left hand. This is continued until 
all the players are shaking their left hands. 
A fourth round makes each player move his 
head and the game is continued until hands, 



A. PLANTATION PARTY 225 

head and feet are all in motion. A failure to 
keep up the motions causes some ludicrous for- 
feit and the game usually ends in a grand romp. 
Another form of entertainment for the plan- 
tation guests consists in making objects from big, 
flat seeds or cotton batting. Small tables are 
provided piled with either bits of cotton or dried 
melon and squash seeds, thread, needles, pins 
and scissors. The party hostess may have to 
give her guests some limits as to the objects 
which can be made, but soon all the players will 
find themselves busily working for the prize 
which will reward the most unique product. 
The seeds may be strung together in many really 
beautiful designs to make necklaces, or bag 
covers. The cotton batting with a few stitches 
can be transformed into quaint little dolls, sets 
of dolls' furs, snow men or animals, to carry 
home as souvenirs of the party. The prize in 
this contest may be a decorated cookbook full 
of rare Southern recipes. 

The party ends with a half hour of old plan- 
tation songs, sung in unison by all the guests 
and including: Way Down Upon the Suwanee 
River, Old Black Joe, My Kentucky Home, and 
Dixie. There may be also recitations from 
Uncle Remas' stories of Br'er Rabbit and his 
wonderful adventures. 




A HALLOWE'EN PARTY 




HE invitations are squares of black 
cardboard and at one end of each 
there is a funny little ghost. A ball 
of white cotton batting makes the 
ghost's head. Eyes, nose, and mouth are done 
with ink or charcoal, and a white crepe paper 
hood and long, full cloak of the same white 
crepe paper complete the weird little person. 
She is securely glued to the card, and the invi- 
tation is lettered on the opposite side of the 
card in white ink. 
It may read: 

The ghosts are out 

Hallowe'en, at nine, 
They'll meet at my house, 

Rain, or shine." 



( o 



228 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

To vary the invitations, white cardboard may 
be used, and instead of a ghost each card is 
decorated with a gay little witch. A tiny roll 
of white cloth has a hickory nut glued to the 
end, on which a face is pencilled or inked. A 
scarlet hood and cape of crepe paper are put on 
the little figure and it is fastened to the card by 
a few stitches taken in the cloth body and 
through the cardboard. On one end of the card 
is written: 

1 The witches ride, 
Hallowe'en, at nine; 
They'll stop at my house, 
Rain or shine." 

The small host or hostess greets the guests 
in either ghost or witch costume and as soon as 
wraps are removed, the children are taken to 
that happiest of all party places, the kitchen. 

Here the old delightful Hallowe'en tricks are 
tried. In a tub, apples cut with Jack-o-Lan- 
tern faces are eagerly bobbed for. One may 
walk down the cellar stairs backward with a 
candle and a mirror and discover fate's face in 
the mirror. One group of children is given a 
bowl of peanuts and as many hat pins as there 
are children. They stab the peanuts with the 



A HALLOWE'EN PARTY 229 

hat pins and the child who succeeds in getting 
the greatest number of peanuts wins as a prize 
a toy pumpkin filled with little candy apples. 
Chestnuts are named and roasted. Apples are 
pared and the parings are tossed upon the floor 
to spell a magic letter. Candy fortune mottoes 
are hidden in a dish of bran and the children take 
turns fishing for them. 

These merry old tricks are such fun. By the 
time they are over and some Hallowe'en games 
have been played, it is time for the feast, which 
is, after all, the best part of the Hallowe'en 
festivities. A merry march takes the children, 
in sheets and pillow case regalia, out to the table 
which is a gay surprise. 

The old twig witch is just the proper place 
decoration for a Hallowe'en supper, where a 
huge pumpkin Jack-o-Lantern stands in the 
center of the table and there are only candles 
for lights. The children will enjoy making the 
witches. 

The twig body has cotton rolled about the end 
in a little ball to form the witch's head, and 
white cloth is stretched over the cotton, sewed 
in place, and the face is drawn on it in pencil or 
ink. The witch's skirt should be very full, 
that she may stand alone, and it is made of 



230 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

bright red or orange crepe paper and glued to 
the twig which forms her body. She wears a 
circular cape, cut from black cambric, and her 
hat is made of black bristol board. A circle 
forms the rim of the hat to which a roll of the 
board is glued for a crown. It will be possible 
to make each twig witch a broomstick steed on 
which she rides away, up the chimney and over 
the house tops after supper. A rather thick, 
straight twig forms the handle of the broom, and 
black worsted or natural colored raffia is tied in 
a bunch to the end with thread to represent the 
broom straw. Each little witch may ride her 
steed as she takes her place at the table and she 
will make a most unique and effective bit of color 
on the white table cloth. 

A wool demon will be a gay place decoration 
and one that a very little child can make. 
Scarlet wool should be wound very evenly many 
times around a square of cardboard, as high as 
one wishes the demon to be tall. The wool is 
then removed carefully and tied an inch from 
the top to make the demon's neck. Next the 
lower ends of the worsted are cut. After cut- 
ting, twenty strands of the worsted are gathered 
up at each side for the demon's arms, and, held 
firmly, are bound with red worsted and cut off 



A HALLOWE'EN PARTY 231 

the required length. More wool is then wound 
round to form the body. The demon's legs and 
tail are made in the same way as the arms, except 
that in doing the legs, the winding stops at the 
knees, leaving the remainder of the wool loose 
to look like knickerbockers. His features are 
sewed in with tiny, black beads. 

A prune may be transformed into a miniature 
black mammy who stands on the table cloth 
beside each plate to see that her cooking is 
being appreciated. Her head is a large prune 
and her body is made of a number of smaller 
prunes strung on a wire which fastens them to 
her head. Her raisin feet are fastened to her 
body by toothpicks as are also her raisin arms. 
Her dress should be of red and white checked 
tissue paper with a white crepe paper apron 
over it, and about her head she has a yellow silk 
bandana draped and fastened on with pins. 

Raisins with four cloves inserted for feet and 
one for a tail make very real little turtles and 
may be scattered about the table for Thanks- 
giving decorations. All sorts of quaint peanut 

animals having pin joints and legs may follow 
in their trail and fat apple seeds with thread 
tails and eyes indicated by pin holes, will make 
tiny mice who throng about a child's plate to 
gather up the remains of the feast. 



232 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

In addition to these quaint little decorations, 
small market baskets of fruit stand at the ends 
of the table. There are chicken sandwiches, 
foaming cocoa, frosted gingerbread squares and 
a magic cake that holds a ring, a penny, and a 
thimble. 

What more could be wished to make children 
happy on Hallowe'en? 






A BIRTHDAY PARTY 

IS so difficult, is it not, to try and 

think of a perfectly new kind of fun 

for a birthday party? But this can 

readily be done. Why not have a 

sort of milestone party that will help a child 

and all his little friends to take the journey with 

him from babyhood to little boy or girlhood. 

The invitations are either pink or blue cards ) 
pink if the little party child is a girl and blue if a 
boy. In one of the upper corners of the card is 
a snapshot of the child as a baby and in the oppo- 
site corner is a wee photograph of the child at 
the present time. Beneath is lettered or written : 



234 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 



( r 



'Won't you take a journey with me 
at my house next Saturday afternoon? 
The Fun Express starts at Three 
O'clock from Babyland and stops at 
the last station, Childland, at Six 
O'clock. 

Your friend, 



it 



As soon as the little guests, all eagerness, 
arrive and take off their wraps, they are led into 
a room which has a sign, Station One, Our 
Baby Friends, and a label is pinned to each 
one's frock or blouse in the back. 

"You are one of the birthday child's baby 
friends," a grown-up says. "Ask the other 
children questions about yourself so as to try 
and find out who you are!" 

Then the fun begins. Of course no child can 
see the label on his own back, but he can read 
every other label. He sees all sorts of Baby 
Land Friends all about him: Boy Blue; The 
Little Pig Who Cried — Wee, Wee; a Nurse; 
a Doctor; a Rattle; a Cradle; a Rubber Doll. 
But whom can he be. To find out, he begins 
asking all sorts of funny questions. 

"What am I made of?" the Rubber Doll asks 
the Cradle and is greatly surprised to learn. 



A BIRTHDAY PARTY 235 

The Rattle tells him he has a whistle in his rubber 
back and is dressed in a red worsted shirt, so he 
soon discovers his identity. Such fun and 
merriment as this causes! And at the end of the 
game, when everyone is beautifully acquainted 
with everybody else and all the labels have been 
discovered, there is a prize of a dainty birthday 
book for the child who discovered his or her 
identity first. 

Next, the children are told that they are going 
to take a trip to another station and they are 
led into the playroom over the door of which 
there is a sign that reads, Station Two, our 
Work and Play. Here, as if it were sort of a 
museum, toys and books and school things are 
grouped in different exhibits leading from baby 
days up to school days. One table holds blocks, 
kindergarten beads, dolls, little dishes, balls and 
all the playthings a wee child loves. In another 
corner are other playthings: a bat, a rake, a 
trowel, a baseball glove, a little workbasket, 
some picture books. A desk holds a pencil 
box, a ruler, a paint box, a speller, a copy book, 
a reader. The children go from group to group 
of these work and play things, looking at them 
very carefully indeed. Then they are hurried 
into the hall outside where they are given sheets 



236 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

of paper and pencils and are told to write down 
as many of the objects that they saw, as possible. 
This is not very easy to do, and no questions 
may be asked. Pencils are chewed and little 
foreheads wrinkle, but at last all the lists are 
completed. Such a surprise awaits the child 
with the longest list! He wins a calendar with 
a beautiful child picture for each month. 

Now the small guests troop to the living room 
where a sign is posted that says: Station Three, 
our Games. 

The program of games that follows here 
begins with games suggestive of baby days and 
works up to those of small boy and girlhood. 

First comes The Sleepy Game. The chil- 
dren draw chairs up to form a circle and seat 
themselves, all except one who is to be the 
Dream Fairy. The Dream Fairy is given a 
twisted gold paper wand to the end of which are 
attached pink and blue tissue paper streamers. 
Darting into the middle of the circle, the Dream 
Fairy recites or sings: 

"I, the Dream Fairy, come on the tips of 

my toes, 
To tickle your foreheads and tickle your 

nose, 
That eyelids may flutter and little eyes 

close, 
And every baby may dreamily doze." 



A BIRTHDAY PARTY 237 

The end of the jingle is the signal for the 
Dream Fairy to touch each child's face with the 
tissue paper streamers at which the child must 
close his or her eyes and play at being asleep. 
But if the child laughs, or giggles, or even smiles 
at the coming of the Fairy, a forfeit must be 
paid. The child who stays quietly asleep longest 
wins the game. 

Next, in the game program, come some Mother 
Goose pantomimes. The children are divided 
into two groups. One group stays in the living 
room, seated as if they were at a real pantomime 
while the other group goes out into the hall to 
decide which of the dear old Mother Goose 
characters they will impersonate. Perhaps they 
decide upon the Old Woman Tossed up in a 
Basket, who swept the cobwebs out of the sky. 
So they come in looking way up, skyward, and 
holding imaginary brooms up with which they 
pretend to sweep. If the children who are 
looking on, guess whom they are representing, 
the groups change places and next time the little 
actors are the lookers-on. 

All sorts of Mother Goose people may be 
impersonated in this pantomime fashion. There 
are King Cole's Fiddlers, Little Boy Blue, The 



238 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

Crooked Man, and a dozen others whose queer 
doings may be acted out by these groups of 
children and the play will be a great fun-maker. 

Last comes a school game, for the children 
are nearing the last milestone in the birthday 
journey. Before the party ever so many little 
paper flags have been made by pasting colored 
paper to squares of cardboard. They represent 
the more familiar countries: France, England, 
Italy, Germany, and so on. These small flags 
have been cut into many pieces and the pieces 
put in a box. The children gather about a 
table and try to make as many flags as possible 
from the pieces, telling which nation each flag 
represents. A doll dressed in a national cos- 
tume is the prize for the little girl who makes the 
most flags from the cut-up pieces and names 
them. For the successful boy, a tiny, silk 
American flag is the prize. 

At the end of these jolly games the children 
troop to the dining room where the sign greets 
them : Last Station. All out for Lunch. 

Scattered about the white table cloth are arti- 
ficial flowers representing the small host's birth 
flower. No other decoration is so effective or so 
appropriate. Birth flowers are: 



A BIRTHDAY PARTY 239 

January Snowdrop. 

February Primrose. 

March Violet. 

April Daisy. 

May Hawthorn. 

June Wild Rose. 

July Lily. 

August Poppy. 

September Morning-glory. 

October Hop. 

November Chrysanthemum. 

December Holly. 

The candles that decorate the huge white 
birthday cake follow the colors of the birthday 
flower and bonbons of the same color are put in 
a wreathlike row about the edge of the icing. 
The snappers at each child's place have one 
flower tied in with a bow of ribbon that matches 
the flower and the favors are tiny storks. 

The party means very little in the way of 
home preparation, but it is unique, happy and 
charming. 





THE NURSERY TEA PARTY 

VERY little girl who has a set of dolls' 
dishes, all gold bands and pink rose- 
buds, and as dainty as mother's best 
china, knows the fun it is to play tea 
party. She knows just how to lay the dolls' 
table with the tablecloth she hemmed with her 
own fingers, and the tiny white napkins she 
fringed herself. She knows, too, how to set the 
dolls' dishes neatly around the table, one little 
plate at each place, and a cup and saucer beside 
each plate; a glass of red geranium flowers in the 
center of the table and then all the dolls ranged 
around in their high chairs. It is all quite easy 
to get the nursery tea party table ready, but 
when it is charmingly set there is always the 



242 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

problem of finding something to eat. Dolls 
do not mind empty plates. They still smile as 
they stare at rosebuds and gold bands, but 
suppose some of the neighbor children drop in 
for tea, and cook or mother have had no time 
to help with the nursery menu and there isn't 
a thing to eat! Wouldn't that be a sorry predica- 
ment for the little girl hostess? 

But a little girl can make ever so many nice 
tea-party things, and the preparing for the party 
will be even more fun than having it. 

There is one very important thing to be 
remembered in getting ready for a tea party, 
though. All the goodies a little girl makes 
should be small enough to fit the dolls' plates. 
Then the table will look dainty and just right. 

Dolls' biscuits are easy to make, and with 
milk, served in the dolls' cups, will do nicely 
for one tea-party menu. The morning that cook 
kneads her bread dough a little girl may ask 
for a scrap from which to make the biscuit. 
A half teaspoonful of sugar must be kneaded 
into a piece of bread dough as large as a duck's 
egg. With the dolls' rolling pin roll out the 
dough flat and cut the biscuit with mother's 
thimble dipped in flour to keep the dough from 
sticking. A dozen of these tiny biscuits will fit 



NURSERY TEA PARTY 243 

in a patty pan and will bake nicely in the oven 
next to cook's pans of bread. The dolls will love 
them, and so will the children. 

The "holes' ' that cook cuts from her dough- 
nuts, a little girl may drop carefully into the 
kettle where the doughnuts are frying and they 
will come out round, fat, crisp little balls ready 
to be sprinkled with powdered sugar and laid 
on the dolls' tea-party plates. "Cambric" tea 
should be served with these little round dough- 
nuts — just some hot water poured from the dolls' 
tea pot into the cups with milk added and sugar. 

Nut cookies are a little more difficult to make 
than biscuits or doughnuts, but they are ever 
so good. To a cup of chopped hickory nut 
meats add one cup of sugar and a pinch of salt, 
one beaten egg, one-third of a cup of milk, one- 
half teaspoonful of soda, one teaspoonful of 
cream of tartar, the grated rind of a lemon, and 
flour enough to thicken. This cooky dough will 
need to be rolled with the kitchen rolling pin 
on the big rolling board, and will cut up into 
enough cookies for the grown-ups' supper. But 
cut a few tiny ones with a thimble and bake them 
all in a hot oven. Orange juice, strained, may 
fill the dolls' cups to serve with these cookies. 

Oatmeal macaroons are delicious, perfectly 



244 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

healthful for dolls, and any little girl can make 
them. Another advantage is that they are just 
the right size for a doll's plate. Directly after 
breakfast mix half a cupful of butter with a 
cupful of sugar until it is creamy and add it to 
the cupful of oatmeal left in the double boiler 
from breakfast. Add two well-beaten eggs, 
and stir until the mixture is creamy. Add half 
a teaspoonful of salt and drop the mixture in 
spoonfuls on a buttered baking dish. The oven 
should be quite hot to bake them and the maca- 
roons will come out brittle and crisp, and as good 
as candy. This rule makes ever so many oat- 
meal macaroons, but the dolls and the tea 
party guests will be able to eat them all. 

There are all sorts and varieties of dainty 
sandwiches that a little girl can make and serve 
for a nursery tea party. And sandwiches can be 
cut exactly small enough to fit on the dolls' 
plates. 

Home-made peanut butter makes a dainty 
filling for sandwiches. It is easy to shell a 
quart of peanuts the morning before the party 
is given. Ask cook to put them through the 
coffee grinder or the meat chopper next, and 
when they come out fine and powdered, mix a 
little olive oil with them and spread them 



NURSERY TEA PARTY 245 

between the slices of the sandwich. Chopped 
hickory nuts make a new kind of sandwich fill- 
ing. The meats should be chopped very fine, 
and with a pinch of salt added, rubbed to a 
paste with a few teaspoons of thin cream. A 
brown bread sandwich is delicious filled with a 
thin layer of cottage cheese or jam and cream 
cheese mixed. Slices of hard-boiled egg, salted, 
may be used for a whitebread sandwich, or jam, 
or chopped olives. 

When the thin buttered slices of bread are 
ready, spread the filling upon one and lay the 
other on top and trim off the crusts with a very 
sharp knife. Then cut the sandwich in any 
sort of fancy shape. Long, narrow sandwiches 
are dainty and they may be tied with narrow 
ribbon. Round sandwiches may be cut with a 
small biscuit cutter, or they can be done with a 
knife in triangular shape. 

With all these tea-party dainties to be made, 
a little girl will be able to give tea parties all 
winter long, and they ought to be the most 
patronized and most popular of any nursery 
affairs in the neighborhood. 







A GARDEN TEA PARTY 

T IS the greatest fun of all, the tea 
party out under the trees with the 
play dishes spread on the grass and 
all the dolls and the nursery ani- 
mals for company. The robins and crickets 
will sing their prettiest to provide music 
for the feast, and a child remembers a vacation 
tea party day as one of the happiest play days 
of the whole, sweet summer time. 

First, the table must be set. The grass will 
serve for a table with one of mother's old napkins 
spread down for a tablecloth. The set of dolls' 
dishes is too pretty for out-door use. Why not 
set the tea table with out-door dishes, and scour 
the woods and fields for plates and cups and sau- 



248 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

cers? If the guests are not able, always, to use 
them for purposes of eating, they will at least 
give the party table a rustic appearance that the 
dolls' dishes could not. 

The little girl hostess can find some charming 
green plates in the grape arbor. All she needs 
to do is to pick the large, fresh leaves and hurry 
back to the tea table under the trees with them. 
Some of the leaves will serve for plates, and the 
remainder will make little cups which will really 
hold water if the stem is broken off, the leaf 
folded up in cup shape, and then pinned in 
place with the stem. Acorn cups and saucers 
are always to be found, but the nicest out-door 
tea dishes are those which a child can model 
from clay. 

Perhaps mother bought a package of modeling 
clay before starting for the country. The soft, 
toy shop clay will make lovely toy dishes. There 
is clay out-of-doors, too, down by the brook. 
If a child has bright eyes and is able to find the 
streak of soft, gray stuff in the ground that looks 
so different from the rest of the red earth on 
either side of it. Roll a bit of clay into a ball 
in the palm of your hand. Then flatten it out 
into the shape of a plate and set it in the sun to 
harden. Another ball of clay may be hollowed 



A GARDEN TEA PARTY 249 

out with a child's two thumbs, and with the 
addition of a roll of clay for a handle — there is 
a tea cup! The saucer for the cup is made in 
similar fashion to the plate, the edges being 
moulded upward, and a fat tea pot is very easily 
modeled, having a clay spout and a twisted clay 
handle added. The sun will bake these little 
clay tea things and then they may be placed on 
the tablecloth under the trees with all the care 
mother uses in setting her own tea table. 

Next, the little hostess must find something 
for her guests to eat. If there are only dolls 
present at the tea party, the fields will furnish 
some play food stuffs which will satisfy their 
appetites quite as well as something more sub- 
stantial. How many children know that the 
yellow head of a marguerite daisy on a doll's 
plate will make her think that she is eating 
poached eggs; that sorrel makes excellent play 
coffee; that little green apples which one finds 
on the wild apple tree after the blooms have 
fallen may be cut up for dolls' apple sauce and 
apple pie; that certain brown pebbles look 
exactly like little potatoes; and that one may 
make dolls' rhubarb by taking a rhubarb leaf 
and cutting the ribs up into stalks? 

Surely a doll will not leave the tea party 



250 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

hungry with all these things to eat; but if some 
real, live, hungry children come to the tea 
party — why, they must be fed. The fields and 
the garden will still help the small hostess. 

Every child loves berries. Why not fill some 
grape leaf cups with big, luscious blackberries, 
or the sweet dusky blueberries. There are two 
or three things to be remembered when one goes 
out berrying. Berries should be picked when 
they are dry. The rain takes away the lovely 
flavor of a berry, but the sun brings it back. 
And there are different sorts of blackberries on 
the same bush as little alike as strawberries and 
gooseberries. Some blackberries are hard and 
closely built. These will do for mother's jam, 
but for her own outdoor tea party, a little girl 
should be careful to pick the big, loosely built 
berries with large, juicy cells ready to crush in 
her fingers. A leaf basket filled with just the 
right kind of berries will look like a basket of gay 
jewels in the middle of the tea-party table. 

After the berries are picked, the little hostess 
may make some sandwiches. There is nothing 
so delicious for sandwich filling as fresh cress 
which a country child may find by the brook, 
and on the way to the kitchen she may gather a 



A GARDEN TEA PARTY 251 

head of lettuce and a tomato from the garden. 
Covered with mother's big gingham apron, the 
sandwich making is begun. 

Bread for sandwiches must be cut so very 
thin, but a little girl can learn how to do this. 
When the slices are ready, some butter must be 
creamed in a porcelain bowl until it is quite 
soft and will spread easily on the tissue thin 
bits of bread. Then comes the sandwich filling. 
Some of the slices of bread may have sprays of 
the crisp cress leaves placed between — others 
may have the pale yellow leaves one finds in the 
center of a head of lettuce — or a delicious filling 
may be made by chopping olives and mixing with 
cream cheese. Finely minced chicken may be 
mixed with mayonnaise dressing as a filling, and 
some of the sandwiches may just be filled with 
mother's jam. When two slices of the bread 
have been put together, the crusts should be 
carefully cut off, and the sandwich cut, diago- 
nally, into two little triangles. Sandwich mak- 
ing is an art, but a little girl may learn it. 

The lettuce leaves which were left after mak- 
ing the sandwiches can be used for salad for the 
tea party. 

Of course, they should be most thoroughly 



252 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND PARTIES 

washed, first, and then laid daintily in a bowl, 
making a little nest of greenness. Then an 
orange should be very carefully sliced, and the 
rind removed — none of the juice being lost, if 
possible. The slices of orange are then laid on 
the lettuce leaves, and the whole salad is covered 
with half a cup of granulated sugar. 

If there is time before the tea party begins, the 
small hostess may stir up and bake a loaf of 
luscious gingerbread. She will break a fresh 
egg from the nest in the barn and beat it until 
it is very stiff in mother's cake bowl. A cupful 
of brown sugar must next be mixed well with the 
egg. Two tablespoonfuls of butter and a little 
bacon fat should be melted together in a pan on 
the stove and then stirred in with the sugar and 
the egg. The little girl must see, now, that her 
oven is hot and before she does anything else 
she must get her baking pan ready, smearing it 
on the inside with butter, that the gingerbread 
may not stick. A cup of black molasses must 
be beaten into the mixture now. In another 
bowl, two cups of flour, half a teaspoonful of 
salt, a teaspoonful of cinnamon, half a teaspoon- 
ful of allspice, and half a teaspoonful of ginger 
should be sifted and then stirred slowly into the 
mixture, and beaten for three minutes. A tea- 



A GARDEN TEA PARTY 



253 



spoonful of cooking soda is dissolved in a cup of 
boiling water and beaten into the other ingredi- 
ents. Last of all, the gingerbread is poured into 
the buttered pan, tucked in the hot oven, and in 
ten minutes it will come out — hot, and brown 
and ready for the party. 




INDEX 



PAGE 

Advertising pictures ------- 106 

Alphabet Games --------36 

Animal Games --------59 

Apple Snapping -------- 195 

Bag and Wand -------- 105 

Balloon Ball ------ -.2 

Barnyard Games --------97 

Bean Bag Call --------25 

Bean Bag March --------26 

Bean Bag Pass --------21 

Bean Bag Puss --------24 

Bean Bag Races --------20 

Bean Bag Toss --------21 

Bear Contest -------- 173 

Bear Puzzle -------- 173 

Belled Cat -------- no 

Bible Pictures --------68 

Bird's Nest -------- 109 

Birthday Party, A-------- 193 

Blind Man's Bupp -------- 197 

Brownie Game -------- 139 

Button, Button --------46 

Cake Game ---------91 

Candle Game --------- 132 

Cat 114 

Caterpillar --------- 105 

Charlie Over the Water ------ 44 

Chasing the Weasel -------44 

Chicken Game ---------10 

Christmas Bag -------- 133 

Christmas Bargain Counter ------ 124 



INDEX 

PAGE 

Christmas Blind Man's Buff ------ 132 

Christmas Candle, The - - - - - - -131 

Christmas Greens -------- 127 

Christmas Ship, The ------- 136 

Christmas Snowballs ------- 135 

Christmas Stocking, The ------- 124 

Cinderella Party -------- 166 

Circle Ball ---------4 

Circle Bean Bag --------24 

Circus ----------93 

Clam Shell Fight --------8 

Clay Work 74 

Clothespin Game -------- 169 

Cobbler Game --------- 167 

Corn Race ---------8 

Corner Bean Bag --------25 

Dodge Ball ---------3 

Donkey's Tail 211 

Dot Menagerie --------94 

Dropping ---------23 

English Maying Game -------79 

Fairy Gifts, The --------141 

Flower Game - ' - - - - - - - - 170 

Fox and Goose --------57 

French Blind Man's Buff - - - - - -110 

Game of Good Resolves ------- 153 

Game of Tinker Bell ------- 140 

Garden Game ---------92 

Garden Tea Party, A------- 247 

Grass Game ---------16 

Greeting Game --------77 

Guessing Animals -------- 112 

Guessing Nuts -------- 100 

Hallowe'en Party, A------- 227 

Hare and Hounds --------64 

Heart Hunt --------- 188 

Hide and Seek in the Barn ------ 12 

Hunting Horns -------- 154 



INDEX 

PAGE 

Jingle Party ------.„. 143 

Johnny Jump-Up -----___ 54 

Leaf Game ---------16 

Leap Names ---------40 

Limericks ---------53 

Little Black Sambo Party - - - - - -163 

Little Boy Blue ------__ 204 

Love my Love ---------50 

Making the Year's Gifts ----__ 157 

Months of the Year ----.__ 155 

Multiplication Ball -------38 

Number Circle - -------38 

Nursery Pantomime - - - - - » -172 

Nursery Tea Party, The 241 

Observation Games --------87 

Old Mammy Jinnie -----___ 224 

Once Upon a Time, Diary 155 

Fs and Q's 51 

Pantomimes -- 54 

Pass Ball -------- _g 

Peanut Jackstraws ------_„ 100 

Peanut Party ------___ 207 

Peanut Races ------___ m 

Pebble Marbles - - - - - _ . -11 

Pebble Race ------__. 9 

Pencil and Pad Games ----_-„ 127 

Penny Hunt - --_ 115 

Penny People --------_ 117 

Penny Questions -----___ ng 

Penny Races ------_.. hq 

Peter Rabbit Party - - - - _ _ -212 

Picture Snap ---30 

Pig Ball ---------.5 

Pirates - m jq^ 

Progressive Games ------_. 99 

Progressive Pictures -------94 

Puss in the Corner --------3 

Puss in the Ring -------. 4g 



INDEX 

PAGE 

Questions - -...---- 113 

Racing Figures --------39 

Red Riding Hood Party ------- 169 

Reindeer --- ......... 126 

Ring Boy 178 

Roadside Twenty Questions - - - - - - 17 

Robber and Castle --------62 

Russian Snowball --------62 

Sand Work ---------74 

Santa Claus Guessing Game ------ 123 

Secrets ---------- 142 

Seed Games ---------40 

Shadow Tag ---------47 

Sheep Game ---------78 

Ship Alphabet ---------52 

Shooting the Turkey -------98 

Smoke Bubbles -------- 184 

Snap Dragon ------- 194 

Snow Ball Games --------60 

Snow Forts -------.-61 

Snow Snake ---------65 

Soap Bubble Games -------- 184 

Spelling Contest --------36 

Steps ----------47 

Stream, The --------- 146 

Suggestions - - - - - -- - -54 

Sunbonnet Baby Party ------- 203 

Sunday Clocks --------70 

Sunday Games ---------67 

Sunday Hand Work - - - - -- - -73 

Sunday Scrap Book --------69 

Sunday Stones -------- 14 

Tableaux of the Months ------ 158 

Telling Hymns --------71 

The Baker 218 

The Basket Game --------3 

The Duke's Land --------45 

The Jolly Miller --------79 



INDEX 

The Sleepy Game -----... o^fi 

Thimble Party -------I 200 

Three Bears Party -----_._ 171 

Tiger Chase ------... lfi 4 

Tiger Game ------._. i fi 4 

Tom Tiddler - - - . m . m m .it 
Touching Game -----.. 44 

Toy Fishing " 19Q 

t ^tag : : : 1I4 

Tree Dance ------.. -ta 

Turkey Hunt ----__.. qq 

Turn the Trencher - - . . . m .104 

Twelfth Night Party - ----.. 194 

Vanishing Penny "-----'■ I 120 

Visiting Game """----- 199 

Walking Penny 11Q 

Weather Man ------.. . -mc 

Wind and the Cuckoo's Nest, The 149 

Wind Races ------■„„ 147 

Wind in the Garden, The - - - . . -US 

Wind's Travels, The ~ 150 

Witch, The ~ 143 

Wolf Game -------.. 170 

Word Games -------..37 

Zoo Game ------.. en 




MAY 28 1913 



3lf?7-3 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




006 012 851 






1 

1 



i 



